Solidworks Rebuild Problem

[aeboli]

Hello,
I recently completed a solidworks model of over 500 features. I then had to go back and revise towards the top of the feature tree which caused a good bit of errors upon rebuilding. I am still in the process of working my way back through the model but noticed that solidworks keeps rebuilding from one point in the feature tree every time i touch the rollback bar or edit a feature. This is driving me crazy becuase it has now gotten up to about 150 features that are rebuilding every time i edit a feature. I have built and revised many complex models in the past and This has never happened. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
thanks

 

[MikeHalloran]

There's probably just _one_ thing wrong; everything else is a side effect.

E.g., when you revise something near the top of the feature tree, you may inadvertently move, remove, or rename some feature that something farther down in the tree was referencing. That, in turn, causes its referencing features to blow up, and so on, in a chain reaction.

You've been lucky.
For me, SW does crazy weird stuff all the time.
Okay, less so as I gain experience, but it still drives me crazy with its mixture of smart and stupid behaviors.





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[fcsuper]

It will take time to get used to some quirks, but every software has its own.

Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group

 

[EEnd]

Have you tried supressing the lower features rather than rolling back the feature tree? It might behave differently.

Eric

 

[aeboli]

Supressing the lower features will not work because pretty much all features are dependents and supressing one feature will suppress pretty much everything below it making them un editable.

I have traced the problem back to the fillet feature where the rebuilding begins. From there, I tried to detect what could be causing the problem and there was an error within the feature. The once filleted edges were no longer in the model. I was able to correct the fillet error but the rebuilding continues. The situation is getting worse as i weed through these revisions because the rebuild list just keeps getting longer. ugh!

 

[Theophilus]

I think part of what Eric was getting at is that if you suppress your down-stream stuff, then when you roll forward a feature at a time, you can unsuppress things as you go--instead of having ALL the downstream features rebuilding EVERY time you roll forward. It could save some time.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

 

[aeboli]

The downstream features are not whats rebuilding. It is the upstream features. From the rollback bar up approx 150 features keep rebuilding. This makes no sense because upstream features should not have to rebuild when downstream features are edited.

 

[EEnd]

There are ways (equations and linked dimensions to name 2) in SolidWorks to make features dependant on down stream features, even to the point of creating circular references. These might trigger the behavior that you are seeing.

Eric

 

[Theophilus]

That's odd. Normally when I rebuild an error-infested part, I solve each feature as I go and don't see what you're seeing. You're not leaving any features upstream with errors, are you? Maybe that's part of the problem? Or something Eric suggested causing circular references within the part?

What version/SP of SolidWorks is this in?



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

 

[aeboli]

There was one error upstream that I resolved. The error was a fillet missing edges that were no longer in the model. This seemed to be where the rebuilding was starting from. After correcting the error, the rebuilding continued. I am using version 2008 SP3.1.

I finally bit the bullet and saved the part out into a new file which cleared the feature treeu. I figured recreating all of the downstream features would be faster than waiting on these rebuilds. Thanks for all of the help!

Alain Eboli
Mechanical Design Engineer

 

[fcsuper]

It sounds like you may be using Top-Down modelling with in-context editing of your models within the higher level assembly. This sort of thing, in my book, is not recommend for larger instrumentation projects because this vary occurance (errors in one part causing errors in other parts) is very common.

Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group

 

[swforge]

Agree with fcsuper
Top down modeling in theory a great idea but not practical for all but the simpler assemblies. No help to you now but consider carefully for the next time.