Rename without Pro/e

[SRINIVASANIYER1]

In many cases, those outside of the Pro|E world don't understand the headache involved and once they do, new alternatives open up.

I am in full agreement with dgs. Lack of awareness on the part of the customer can be excused and understood. But what about your own management !!!! For them it is like typing the new name in Excel. When they are told that it is not so...the next question is "Why I chose such an expensive software that cant do what Autocad can or What MsOffice can". I have no option but to teach my management on the intricacies of Proe citing parallels with Oracle. If they still do not understand and are bent on blaming me for the mess then the next best option is to bang my head on the wall hoping that atleast the wall would understand.

I wish you could see the bumps on my head.

Hair loss is definitely better.

 

[sip]

Good morning Srini,


And if you knew why ProE makes it so difficult, at least you could bang your head on the wall intelligently!

Sip

 

[super_puh]

When I read this posts I don't know to what to do -to laugh or tocry???


PS: I love my hair

 

[jelston]

Just a thought, when I have to rename a part instead of taking the old part out adding the new part with the desired nameand causing a mating nightmare, I make a family member of the old part and rename it with the desired name and replacing is a snap.

 

[SRINIVASANIYER1]

I make a family member of the old part and rename it with the desired name and replacing is a snap.

This is ok for a single assembly. A family part ia a unique part. The night mare occurs when you have to change all the "WHERE USED" of an instance. i.e. when a single unique part occurs in more than ONE assembly say 10 or 20 or 30 assemblies. This is where data management software is required. Hence you bloody well PURCHASE INTRALINK or PDMlink.

 

[pjw]

Rename your part through Windows Explorer (cannot be a family table member). If it belongs to an assembly - don't worry. Keep a record of what you've renamed recently. Next time you come to open up an assembly, open the renamed part up first, rename it in session, open the assembly and then rename your part back to its current name. Save your assembly.


Depending on which tricks and workarounds you use, you need never have any problems with renaming in Pro/E - even without Intralink.


Phil

 

[dgs]

pjw - I like that plan. Keep a running list of 'renamed' parts & assys, and fix their parent assys as you find them. Nice.

 

[Mindripper]

I think if all the assemblies/drawingsthat use the part/subassembly are in memory when you change the filename (and you save them afterwards), the new filename will be correctly referenced in all cases. This can be a real bookkeeping nightmare for complex assemblies though - and your computer may not be able to handle having all the files in memory at the same time. Intralink definitely helps here. But DO NOT change filenames using Windows Explorer if you are using Intralink: this can screw up internal references permanently, from what I've been told.


These areproblems common to all CAD systems I am familiar with: if you're going to get at all sophisticated with your assemblies, you'd better be using a file management system such as Intralink. Some people (and CAD software companies too) mistakenly refer to these as 'PDM systems',but they are in fact just a subset of PDM.

 

[pjw]

Intralink doesn't really rename files - it's just a fix. If you look in the .proi folder after a rename you will see that the phyiscal file Windows side remains unchanged. Intralink has internal rename tables which are really just doing what you would be doing with your record of changed names.


A good way of replacing parts with copies is to make a family table member of the old part, replace with the new part and then delete the family table. As the family table member is still in session, it will not be removed with the family table.


You cannot rename family table members through Windows because the physical file becomes corrupt when you open and save it witha text editor. You also can't do a 'where used' on a part through Windows.


Phil

 

[tosh382]

C'mon ...


Get down to the nitty gritty and do it like the rest of us have to ...


Pull everything up in session that has that part or assembly linked to it and then start renaming and saving multitudes of assemblies and drawings ...


Or get intralink and rock thru it with a j-link script in 1 minute.
Edited by: tosh382

 

[conrat]

Hi all,



This article is of great interest to me. Here is my
dilemma. Let's see if any of you with bigger brains than I can
assist.



I have a huge assembly that is packed full of Pro/Program, relations,
interchanges, executes, etc...etc....etc... It is an assembly of
a hollow metal door where nearly everything, from width and height to
hinge size to lock options, etc. are user defined.



The problem I am having is, I need to create a duplicate copy of this
assembly, so that we can do pairs of doors, a door opening with two
leaves. Currently we are doing one at a time, but would like to
allow two different configurations of this model into session at the
same time.



Any ideas? I think it can be done with Intralink, but would like
to stay away from using it unless there are absolutely no other options.



Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.



Thanks,

Jim

 

[jelston]

Simplified Reps maybe. I use sim reps in a very similiar way. As a matter of fact, it makes life really easy when the drawing setup will be the same. I paste the views I want and get them set up all purty, then I save a copy and change the simp rep being reference in the drawing.
Edited by: jelston

 

[conrat]

jelston,



How would this work with user input? Sometimes on a pair of
doors, one leaf might be 36" wide while the other is 24" wide.
This changes a lot of part sizes between the two assemblies.
Also, cutouts in the door between the two would be quite
different. One might have a lock cutout while the other has a
strike cutout.



I have only fooled with Simp Reps a little, mainly to increase regen
times. I know you are probably pretty busy, but can you point me
toward somewhere that has in depth information on what you are
describing?



FYI - I have over 200 input params to define the various features in
the door. These need to be independent between the two assemblies
at the same time.



The Pro|E help file sucks pretty bad. It doesn't go into great depth on them.



Thanks,

Jim

 

[TonyJager]

How about family table of the assembly/part?


You can also drive the parameters at the assembly level for each idividual part. I know you have 200 parameters so it could get involved.

 

[conrat]

I forgot to mention that I am driving this entire assembly using top
down and skeletons. The skeletons drive many datum features that
are copied or inherited into parts to control size and shape.
This allows us to make many changes to the skeleton and end up with an
accurate part model.



One idea was to copy the assembly and open each part and rename it, as
well as saving the part drawing so that it knows of the name
change, then saving the assembly and updating my inheritance "ADD
COMPONENT ()" commands.



This seems a bit tedous, but i may be able to do this. It will just take a while.



Any other thoughts are appreciated.



One other question, does anyone think Intralink would be a good choice
to do the copy and rename? I hate to use it, but it may be the
only way.



Thanks,

Jim

 

[dgs]

If you do a 'save as', you can choose what components to re-use in the new assy and which ones to create new. For the new ones, you can generate new names by rule using wildcards.

 

[jelston]

Yeah, what dgs said.


Promise I'll reply when I get time. But just wondering, what the heck kind of door is this?

 

[conrat]

I like the SAVE AS option. When you do this, does it maintain all
of the relations and assembly constraints, etc? I have tried this
but was nervous. I wll backup my model and try it. I will
let you all know how it turns out.



As for jelston's question:



We do specialty doors for industrial applications. The sizes,
locks, handing, hinges, etc. used constanly change. And,
because of UL fire ratings and things like that, the quantities of a
lot of things need changed based on the size.



And, since it is a hollow metal door, we weld in various reinforcements
depending on what door hardware is used. Sometimes we make two
doors and splice together because of the size. Pretty in depth
stuff.



This project has made me love Pro/E. After learning to do
interchanges and top down design, I can do a lot of neat programming
stuff in Pro/E.



For instance, I learned that I can drive a interchanged part using a
string variable and easily swap out different hinge reinforcements
based on the size and mortise depth.



I never realized how much can go into a door until I worked here.
Pro/E is so much easier than manually laying out parts, which is the
"old" way of doing things. Takes longer to set up, but makes for
a much more consistent design.



Unfortunately, many of the "old" guard do not like the "new"
technology, but there are a lot of up and comers here and they are
chomping at the bit to learn the new tools.



Thanks again for all of your help. I tell everyone if they have a
Pro/E question, MCAD Central is the place. Much better and faster
than old PTC tech.



Jim

 

[omarhernandez]

conrat,


I hope i am not too late....I have done something similar to what you are doing. Do you have any layouts decalred to an assy. There is an assy layout bug when using save a copy. Let me know if you do and I will tell you how to resolve it.


Omar