Large asm mangagement

I have a new product that we are working on in exercise equipment. We are just entering into the market and are working on one version of this product. Getting deeper into research, we have realized that this product has 8 different versions that we need to sell. Each one is only different by length or by adding a component. Does any one have advice on how to manage the different assemblies in Pro E. Each assembly will have a different top level name and part number. I want to be able to open one product and choose by options, which is why my first thought was to manage them in a Family Table. The problem that I run into is that at the top level some of the parts are different lengths, so when I opt to have the longer piece, the child doesn't reference the longer piece and therefore is in the wrong position, or fails. We only have the basic package from ptc and was wondering if advanced assembly or another extension is what I am looking for or if there is a way to work it with the current setup?

Assuming that the long and short part are instances of the same generic part you should be able to swap them in an assembly family table.

Is the component being swapped and a subsequent child failing to assemble. If so it is almost certain that you have assembled to references that do not exist or are incompatible in the failing instance.

Or is the short/long part failing to be swapped in the first place. If this is the case you have probably got the instance name in the family table cell wrong. Another possibility is that you have got a very old Foundation licence package which couldn't swap components in assembly family table. I believe this was moved into the Foundation Advantage bundle.


DB

If I understand right, you problem is with components not placing correctly or failing. The parts that are different lengths must also be family table parts. This way the components are always referencing the same parts, just different lengths.For this part with different lengths, Start by making the part (lets call it PartA), then create a family table within this part, and have an instance for all the different lengths, parta_001, parta_002, etc. . In your assembly generic, assemble this generic. The in the assembly family table, create an instance name for each of the 8 final products,and for each of theseinstances and the proper size parta_00x.

Thanks for the replies

"The parts that are different lengths must also be family table parts.
This way the components are always referencing the same parts, just
different lengths." I think that this what I was needing. However, that brings me to the next complication. The parts are 2 rails (pretty complicated in geometry) and there is a Left and a Right. I wanted to just mirror the right so that I could just change the left part and the right would update. But when I try to add a family table to the mirrored part, it fails. Do you know how to keep them all referencing each other so that we only have to change one part?
Just to clarify, there is on part with a left and a right and a longer set of the left and right.

Thanks again.

Trying to make multiple lengths of reference mirrored parts does make things a lot more complicated. The standard way to do this is by creating an Interchange Assembly to define equivalent references between different parts so they can still be swapped via a family table but to do this requires Advanced Assembly Extension. You will also probably need another separate assembly containing all the instances of one hand in order to assembly/create all the other handed versions so that that will maintain their references

A possible work-around is to create placement references (datum planes and axes etc) within the top level assembly. Assemble ALL left and right hand parts to these and use the family table to turn off everytihng you dont want.

Another possibility is to have both left and right hand sets assembled and create left and right hand Simplified Reps which might be the easiest way to get what you want but these cannot be used easily in a higher level assembly.

But on the other hand, if you can try to build the left and right hand parts in the SAME
generic model. There are several techniques for keeping left and right
hand parts matching but without seeing the geometry it is hard to
comment on the most appropriate method.


DB


Edited by: Dell_Boy

jill.daniel said:

Does any one have advice on how to manage the different assemblies in Pro E. Each assembly will have a different top level name and part number. I want to be able to open one product and choose by options, which is why my first thought was to manage them in a Family Table. The problem that I run into is that at the top level some of the parts are different lengths, so when I opt to have the longer piece, the child doesn't reference the longer piece and therefore is in the wrong position, or fails.

Click to expand...

Your solution lies in creating assembly family table. You will have to use the configurator option in the Family table to achieve your requirement.

We manage assemblies with skeleton's and assembly family tables!
The assembly models are built in subassembly fashion and these subassemblies are assembled to the Skeleton. This breaks the parent child relationship problems!


Skeletons can be added at any point in the assembly process!


Also we have used simplified rep's to achieve the different assembly configurations.


Hope this helps