Grouping parts into sub-assemblies

[SW]

I tend not to think about the assembly
structure as much as I should do at the start of a top-down design
process, or the assembly changes so much that I my original plan
falls apart anyway.


This causes me a few problems, on of
them being that I want to group parts into sub-assemblies after they
have been assembled. Is there a way to do this without re-assembling
the parts. Sometimes I have only assembled one part, then later
realise it should be part of a subassembly.


Anyone got any suggestions?


Sam

 

[drifter]

Hi Sam


Restructure the components to the sub assembly you want them in. Select edit, restructure. Select the component and then the sub assy.

 

[SW]

Thank you.

 

[jeffe]

tip:


After you use restructure you should reassemble using approiate references.


otherwise there will be an extenral reference linking to the orgional top level assy

 

[SW]

If I have to re-assemble anyway to avoid redundant references, whats the point ofusingthere-structure command first?

 

[SW]

I have been using the restructure command, and it is of some
use, but why does Pro/E need to keep the reference to the original assembly? Is
there no way of breaking this association without having to re-assemble
everything? It could be just me, but it seems a bit unnecessary?




Sam

 

[AHA-D]

It's the strict adherence on behalf of ProE to a) keep parts that are referenced in the order they were referenced first b) keep relations in their original environment c) insist on solving every relation d) keep the "direction" of the relations.


Speaking strictly relations it shouldn't matter whether part A or part B comes first if you only have relations between them two. But it matters for ProE. It's painfully clear when for instance you have an assembly with B relating to A and C relating to A. When you see that part B needsone of theoriginal constraints moved towards C you can't go in and redefine B, because C doesn't exist at that point. You have to reorder if you want to do that.


I work with SE in my (now extra-) freelance job, where you can freely change relations, as long as it makes sense. You can also "prune and graft" as you like, creating subassemblies on the fly, moving parts from main to sub and vice versa, keeping relations that were set. ProE still has a long way to go.

 

[dr_gallup]

You don't have to reassemble them, just redefine the constraints. It is somewhat easier because Pro/E keeps the component references and you just have to pick new assembly references. Depending on what references you used the first time, some parts might not need to be redefined. Also, you don't have to worry about parts you move up to higher assembly levels, only parts that move down to lower level sub-assemblies.

One thing you can do is just delete the old constraints and leave the components as packaged but then they won't move correctly when other parts change size.