Over-ride BOM quantities for multiple instances of fasterners in an assembly 3

[webhaus]

I'm working on a project with a large number of fasteners in an assembly, but we don't want the models to get bogged down with having all of those models in the assembly. Does anyone know of a way to over-ride the quanity of an item in the assembly? I know I can do that when a BOM is in the drawing, but I'm trying to do this in the assembly model, so we have a complete BOM in upper level assemblies.

Currently working in SWX 2012.

 

[drawoh]

webhaus,

Can you simplify your fastener models instead? I am cleaning up a huge assembly full of McMaster Carr models of fasteners, complete with threads. Not only do the helical threads slow down my computer, they don't print very well on the drawings.

Model the fasteners yourself, showing minimal detail. Include all of them in your model and on your drawings. Notice when fastener heads are in the way of something.

--
JHG

 

[JMirisola]

Quantify 'large number'.
You could go into the configuration specific properties and do it there, but how are you going to know how many fasteners you're using? If you change something, you'd need to remember to go and change the quantity for any affected fasteners. Seems to me you'd be better off suppressing your fasteners except for when generating your drawing. Wait, I just reread your post. You want to create your BOM in the assembly? In that case you'd need to do it at the part level like I first mentioned, I think.
If you're using 2012, I doubt that your system is going to get bogged down, especially if it's a newer system and you're using good assembly techniques.

Jeff Mirisola
My Blog

 

[ctopher]

Can you make the other parts virtual?

Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[webhaus]

Thanks for the tips guys.. the large number is roughly 1200 fasteners for some of the assemblies, which get assembled multiple times into a larger master assembly. Our fastners are simplified already, so there are no threads. I run a high end PC which doesn't care too much, but some others I work with have issues when working with that many fasteners.

One problem with populating every hole with fasteners is the extra time taken to insert those fasteners, while the alternative is to count every hole and manually enter it in the BOM. We're trying to find a way where we can fill in a custom property in the assembly to fill in those quantities. If we do it in the fastern itself it would need a configuration for every model it's used in the show the correct quantity.

The other guys would rather just put one instance in, then manually count the holes and type the number in the BOM, but we're trying to gather part data out of a master assembly for the total number of parts/fasteners used, and we can't do it if we are manually entering the quantities in the drawing BOM's.

 

[Updraft]

As I read the posts above it seams like there is a lot of unnecessary effort going into the way some are doing things. Here are a few suggestions to make life a lot easier:

First, use ToolBox for your fasteners instead of the McMaster-Carr ones. TB fasteners are much faster and easier to use than a lot of people think. I only use the McMaster-Carr fasteners when there is something they have that ToolBox doesn't, which is rather rare. TB is so easy to customize with your own part number and descriptions. You can even use a Comments field to put the McMaster-Carr part number if that is how you plan to purchase them. TB fasteners also carry "meta data" that McMaster-Carr and parts manually modeled in SWX do not. For instance, when dragging a TB fastener onto a hole such as an M4 tapped hole created with the Hole Wizard, the component goes to the appropriate threaded fastener, M4, and even follows the length rules setup in the SWX options.

Second, make generous use of subassemblies in your modeling. This helps at all levels.

Third, in most cases when inserting fasteners you need to only insert the first one and then use Feature Driven Component Pattern to insert the rest in the holes. Just pick the hole series for the pattern to follow. If the number of holes on the detail part change so will the number of fasteners that are tied to those holes. For instance, say you are inserting a washer, screw and nut into a perimeter set of holes. Just get the first location squared away with those three fastener components and then use Feature Driven Component to populate the rest of the holes. Along those line, another reason to use TB fasteners is they have Smart Mate references that makes installing and mating them easier than a standalone part like a McM-Carr part.

Fourth, like fillets and chamfers being created at the end of a part's feature tree, it is good practice to: a) mate assembly parts to each other without relying on the fastener to hold them together, i.e., mate a hole to a hole rather than mate a hole on one part to a screw and then a hole on another part to that same screw, b) insert the fasteners near the end of the assembly's component tree, c) group the fasteners together, such as in a folder.

Fifth, ToolBox components carry properties that allows SolidWorks to exclude them in certain listings. Read up on this.

Sixth, you can easily manually control the display/suppression state of fasteners by using configurations. This is especially easy to do if you have grouped them as in the fourth point above.

- - -Updraft

 

[webhaus]

Thanks for the tips Updraft...

I'm still looking for a way to manually enter a fastener/part quantity into an assembly, as some of the people who will be dealing with the models are resistant to change and insist that they will only work with one instance of the fastener in the assembly.

 

[ShaggyPE]

I agree with all points brought up by Updraft.

Another solution that kind of fits the bill. Since you don't care to see the part, you just need it counted in the BOM, you can insert it once as you currently are, then you can do a linear pattern with the distance being extremely small (.001"). Then "hide all components" in that pattern. In this case, the number of fasteners in your assembly is correct, so is the weight. The resource hog is edges and mates... with the part hidden and patterened, you have added neither.

Just a thought.

-Dustin
Professional Engineer
Pretty good with SolidWorks