Modify part description by typing it in my Assembly Drawing BOM

Question

Modify part description by typing it in my Assembly Drawing BOM

borsht (Mechanical)

(OP)

5 Apr 23 18:23

I have an assembly of common parts, and it's respective assembly drawing with a BOM. I am trying to make all of the like parts have a similar description with only the different sizes listed at the end of the description. What I want to do is to modify the description of each part from the BOM of the drawing, as I believe I have done in my past lives. I would rather do that than to open each of the parts, then navigate to the properties, and change each one. I thought I had done this thru the assembly drawing BOM, and upon saving it the parts were also saved with the modified description property.

Unfortunately when I try doing this it only allows me to substitute my changes to the drawing bom, but it wont link it back to he part.

Am I doing something wrong, or is what I want not possible?

SolidWorks Newbie since 2001
-Currently using SW2021

Inventor Newbie since 2019
-Unfortunately Currently using Inventor22

Jboggs (Mechanical) · Answer 1 · 2023-04-05 19:07:11

"Am I doing something wrong, or is what I want not possible?"
I'm no expert but have been using SW extensively and daily since 2008. I'm not aware of any way to alter part properties from within a drawing.

Following is my opinion, not helpful facts:

And I wouldn't want to! Maybe my decades in engineering has made me somewhat anal, but I am a strong believer (some would say excessively so) in consistency in departmental processes. A user of a drawing should not be able to look at it and know which member of an engineering department produced it without looking at the signature.

That being said, if you want all your parts in a BOM to have some similarity in callout information, that similarity should be built in at the part level. That similarity should eventually appear in all your drawings, not just the one you happen to be working on at the moment.

drawoh (Mechanical) · Answer 2 · 2023-04-06 17:15:18

borsht,

Your BOM entries are populated from the part models. Your part libraries, including the BOM descriptions, ought to be read-only. If I were your co-worker, I would not want you changing BOM entries from the assembly.

I also strongly agree with Jboggs' comment above about consistency.

--
JHG

borsht (Mechanical) · Answer 3 · 2023-04-06 17:39:34

I agree with you both. I just wish the former employees who setup this community library would have been organized and set some standards/naming conventions, on their properties, instead of flavor of the day. I'm just trying to fix the rag-tagged-ness of it the most convenient/efficient way possible.

SolidWorks Newbie since 2001
-Currently using SW2021

Inventor Newbie since 2019
-Unfortunately Currently using Inventor22

ctopher (Mechanical) · Answer 4 · 2023-04-06 19:21:18

Add configurations to each part with descriptions you want, show configs in BOM.

Chris, CSWP
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Modify part description by typing it in my Assembly Drawing BOM