Reference Set Save Behavior 1

[DLH81]

I'm trying to understand how reference sets work when you have many sub assemblies. Specifically I'm wondering how the save behavior is set to work. I can't think of a good way to explain this without everything getting very confusing, so I'm going to try to spell out an example and hope you are able to follow along!

Lets say there is a main assembly called 1000 and Bob is the owner of that assembly.
Assembly 1000 has a sub assembly, called 200 Joe is the owner of that one.
Within sub-assembly 200, there are components 30, 40 and 50.

When Bob looks at his top assembly 1000, he sees that components 30, 40, and 50 inside of sub-assembly 200 are showing up as "entire part" reference set. He wants them to all be showing as "model".

When Joe opens his 200 sub-assembly, components 30, 40 and 50 are showing up as "model".

Bob changes the reference sets of 30, 40 and 50 to model in the 1000 assembly, then performs a save. He gets a message that no attempt was made to save sub assembly 200 or components 30, 40, or 50 because they are read only since Joe has them checked out. The reference sets remain at "entire part". If Joe checks in those components and the assembly 200, when Bob does the save on the top assembly 1000, then the components all save in the model reference set.

I have done some tests and the above scenario is what I have found to be happens when trying to change a reference set and then save it. The problem is that in my "real life" case, Joe is hesitant to check-in sub assembly 200 because he thinks that other unintended changes could be made if other people are saving his assembly. So is there a way to change reference sets in a top level assembly without the owners of the sub assemblies having to check their parts in?


By the way, Joe and Bob are running NX8.0 and Teamcenter8.

 

[JohnRBaker]

WHY DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE SUB-ASSEMBLY AS A 'MODEL' REFERENCE SET?????

The fact that you're seeing the sub-Assembly using the 'Entire Part' Reference Set is exactly the way the system is SUPPOSED to be working. However, when in an Assembly, the Components which represent single part models (not Assemblies) they should be using the 'Model' Reference Set, but when an Assembly is being used as a sub-Assembly in a higher level Assembly, it should be using the 'Entire Part' Reference Set. If you NEVER go to the Reference Set dialog, then things will pretty much work the way that they're supposed to work for about 90% of the situations.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[DLH81]

It's not the sub assembly I want to see as a model reference set, it is the components within the sub assembly. There are some components within that sub assembly whose reference set is set so entire part, so I see datums, sheets, etc. when I load the top level assembly. I'm not sure how they ended up being set to entire part, but now I want them to show as model when I load the top level assembly. I can change them to model, but when I perform a save to the top assembly, it won't let me save the sub-assembly because it is read-only so next time I load the top assembly they are back to entire part. If I load just the sub assembly, all the components show up as "model" reference set, so not sure why they show as entire part when opening the top level?

 

[looslib]

Read John's post again...It is acting as designed!

The only thing you may want to check is your load options and see how you are loading reference sets.



"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[DLH81]

Ok, I think I'm closer to understanding what happened in my case and also probably why my question isn't being understood the way I'm intending it to be.

Turns out, the sub assembly in question which is owned by a co-worker has reference sets created at the assembly level which I know is NOT a recommended practice! So when I was loading this sub assembly in the top assembly, one of the created reference sets was loading instead of the Entire Part reference set. I went in and made the sub assembly the displayed part, went to Format - Reference Sets, selected the created reference set and then selected Information. The information window listed all the components included in the reference set, and also displayed the reference set used by each of those components in this created reference set at the assembly level. As suspected, several of those components were using the "Entire Part" reference set.

Now my question is, why were some components using the "Entire Part" reference set in that newly created assembly reference set? Is there some setting when creating a reference set at the assembly level (I know, bad practice!), or does it automatically use whatever reference set that those components are set to when creating the reference set? I'm wondering so that I can explain this to co-workers and at the same time use this as an example of why NOT to create reference sets at the assembly level.

If anyone else has any other reasons that they can explain for why it is not good to create reference sets at the assembly level I'd like to hear them. I want to convince others not to do this, but if I just say "because it isn't recommended" without any good clear examples I know it will get blown off!

Thanks all for the help!

 

[JohnRBaker]

...or does it automatically use whatever reference set that those components are set to when creating the reference set?

That's what's happening. If he had just left the Components set to 'Modling' Reference Sets and then never messed with Reference Sets in the Assembly file itself, when you added this file to YOUR Assembly as a Sub-Assembly setting it to 'Entire Part', it would have come out the way you wanted it to.

Like I said, there are good reasons to avoid assigning explicit Reference Sets when you're creating the Assembly files themselves and it appears that you've just run into one of those cases for which why we made this rule.

Now before anyone asks why didn't we just write the code to NOT allow anyone to even access the Reference Set function if you're working in an Assembly, well there are always a few exceptions to every rule ;-)

First you have to realize that prior to the introduction of Arrangements, despite the problems inherit with using Reference Sets to control the content of Sub-Assemblies, it was the only 'tool' that we had. And there are still a couple of rare situations where there really is nothing that will work except Reference Sets, but they are few and far between and can normally be avoided if you're utilizing the currently available tools when created Assemblies and in particular, Drawings of Assemblies, so I wouldn't lose any sleep over these obscure cases for now. If you're lucky, they will never become an issue.

Anyway, I hope that helps.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[DLH81]

It was very helpful John! Thanks much!