Route Segment Properties?

[MikeHalloran]

I've got a piece of pipe that's threaded at one end and butt- welded for the remainder of its path.

That is, that's what the physical pipe looks like; it already exists. Now, I'm trying to tell Solidworks that, yes, I want to route a pipe like that.

Splitting the route apparently doesn't allow me to logically separate the two ends of the pipe; SW just brings up an error message telling me that both ends of the pipe must be the same.

What am I doing wrong?



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[MikeHalloran]

Oh. Yeah. The error message that gets in the way tells me to 'examine the properties of the Connection Point at each end of the route'. Just how do I examine the properties of a Connection Point?



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[MikeHalloran]

The help text for "Split Route" says that a Connection Point will appear in the Feature Manager design tree. I'm not finding it. Split Route seems to produce a rather ordinary point, with no annotations anywhere and no special properties. It _does_ cleave the route into co-linear line segments, but it does _not_ then allow me to assign different properties to the parts of the route.

Maybe it would allow a difference 'covering' as in the example. It doesn't allow a difference in terminations.... Nope. Keep getting the error message about Route Segment Properties.

SW2009.0.0





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[NL8]

Mike,

The connection point will be the in either the part file at the end of the Route segment or in the point that started the route assembly. Can you post your file? A small team on my staff was responsible for setting up our Routing library from scratch and have a good handle on it and may be able to figure out what's wrong.

Joe Hasik, CSWP/SMTL
SW 09 x64, SP 1.0
Dell T3400
Intel Core2 Quad
Q6700 2.66 GHz
3.93 GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600

 

[MikeHalloran]

It's a 6Mb file with references all over a server. I'll try to cut out a standalone piece representative of the problem, but I'm known to be slow on my best day.

In the meantime, I'll try to describe the geometry in words.
From a 2" weld neck flange located by mates to the overall assembly, the route goes aft a couple of feet through some SCH80 pipe, a couple more weld neck flanges and a valve, then up to the run of a 2" threaded tee that is actually part of a subassembly.

The difficulty seems to be the last part of the route, comprising a 2" weld neck flange, a 2" SCH80 LR ELL, and what in the real world is a short 2" half nipple buttwelded to the ell and screwed into the tee.

Solidworks doesn't seem to have a library/ routing/ toolbox part corresponding to the half nipple, and the "Split Route" function does not seem to work as documented, in that it splits the route path okay, but it doesn't split the route properties.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[MikeHalloran]

Okay.
I made up a test case comprising a big 'ol angle kind of thing with a threaded half- coupling attached to one leg, and I tried routing from a weld neck flange on the other leg to it.

After an hour ... no, damn it, two hours, of screwing around, it routed. Then I was able to route the original pipe I've been trying to route all day.

I think the key was, working inside the routing 3D sketch, I put a cpoint inside the threaded fitting, i.e. within the 'context' of the welded pipe sketch, and routed to that, _not_ to the cpoint or any other feature that was already in the threaded fitting for attaching threaded pipes.

At least I think that's what worked... after trying everything else I could think of.


Thanks for the help. I think maybe I'll go home soon....



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[MikeHalloran]

Of course, it only _looks_ properly routed. Basically, I've got a plain pipe end jammed into a threaded fitting. The BOM/cut list, if I cared about it, would be inaccurate in that respect, showing a plain pipe where it should show a half nipple.

So, I've found a way to cheat.

Obvious question: Is there a way to do it >right<, routing a welded pipe into a threaded coupling/ elbow/ tee/ union?

If there's no other way, I'll be disappointed; I'm trying to learn the "SW way", and do everything 'right', so as to take maximum advantage of the tool and justify the continued investment.





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[NL8]

Mike,

do you have a separate part number for the half nipple, or do you just document it as a specific cut length of pipe. When we set up Routing we were only able to use it with our specially part numbered pipe nipples by writing a recursive macro that steps through an assembly tree and edits custom properties of pipes based on their overall lengths. It was an experience to get sorted out and written. I got swamped today but I'm going to try and model up an example of what I believe you are trying to do and post it tomorrow.

Joe Hasik, CSWP/SMTL
SW 09 x64, SP 1.0
Dell T3400
Intel Core2 Quad
Q6700 2.66 GHz
3.93 GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600

 

[MikeHalloran]

No, I don't have a part number for a half nipple.
I'd expect to find it in the SW routing components, or a toolbox or something; wouldn't you?



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[NL8]

Well, you could always do like we do here for components like that. Insert a non-route component into the assembly after you've finished the route and just mate it to the sketch lines. It's worked well for us in the past.

Joe Hasik, CSWP/SMTL
SW 09 x64, SP 1.0
Dell T3400
Intel Core2 Quad
Q6700 2.66 GHz
3.93 GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600