solidworks weldment to asseembly

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Assembly f rom Part – No mates requiredPosted on November 10, 2010

So far you must have been creating your assemblies from parts using Bottom Up method in which you first design

and model parts, then insert them into an assembly and use mates to position the parts. To change the parts, you

must edit them individually. These changes are then seen in the assembly OR using Top Down method in which one

or more features of a part are defined by something in an assembly, such as a layout sketch or the geometry of

another part. The design intent (sizes of features, placement of components in the assembly, proximity to other

parts, etc.) comes from the top (the assembly) and moves down (into the parts).

Now take a case of multi body part which you might need as an assembly. The option might be to save the individual

body as separate part using “Insert into New part” option, insert them into a new assembly and use mates to

position the parts.

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STOP using this method and let’s talk of a different and simple method/option called “Create Assembly” which will

help us to create an assembly directly from a multi body part without getting into hassles of using Bottom Up

method, hence saving a lot of time.

1. Open or create the multi body part. I have created a steel table with legs and a table top.

2. Expand the Cut list or Solid body folder by clicking on the + sign next to Cut list or Solid body folder (As I have

weldment part used for describing the method, you’ll see only cut list is being used in next steps)

3. You will see the bodies contained in the different folder based on their shapes and sizes. Their name is

automatically driven through SolidWorks.

4. Rename (if you wish or need) their name to something meaningful or something you can recognize easily.




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5. Now right click on the cut list and select save bodies.

6. Next you’ll see Save Bodies property manager. Click on Aut o-ass ign Names.

7. The names which you have given in step 4 will be applied to the bodies here. Don’t worry about the order of

the bodies.

8. Now comes the important step. Click on Browse under “Create Assembly” in the same Save Bodies property

manager. This will prompt you to create/save a new assembly.




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9. Key in the required assembly name and click on save.

10. Finally click OK under Save Bodies property manager to execute the command of creating the assembly.

11. Hurray, you have just made an assembly from a multi body part. The new assembly will open up or in case it

don’t, you can always open it up from the location where you saved it.

12. Now you can use this new assembly for other assembly operations like exploded view, BOM, etc.




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13. Also any changes done in the part will be reflected in the assembly.

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25 THOUGHTS ON “ASSEMBLY FROM PART – NO MATES REQUIRED”

Deepak Gupta

This entry was posted in Ass embly, Part, Sketch, Solidworks and tagged Create_Assembly , Fabrication,

Multi_Bodies, Plates, Save_Bodies by Deepak Gupta. Bookmark the permalink

[http://gupta9665.com/assembly-from-part-no-mates-required/] .

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Brandon

on June 18, 2014 at 1:51 AM said:

Can you combine duplicate parts when saving to an assembly? I have a handrail with all the center supports

all the same. I don’t want them all showing up as separate parts when they are identical

Deepak Gupta

on June 27, 2014 at 4:56 PM said:

Sorry you can’t do that. Not sure if there would be anything in future version of SoldiWorks. The bestyou can do is use replace part and switch them all to same file.

Eugen

on July 5, 2013 at 10:25 PM said:

Thank you Deepak, cool trick, I didn’t know it.

It could make the job, the only thing, I’ve seen after re-creating the main assembly, all the new components

become grey. Sometimes I have to do some renderings for the user manual, so it is possible to keep the

original colours?

Thanks.

Peter


Is there any way to get thread info onto the saved body?

The weldments we make often have holes in tubes and plates that need to be machined before the

weldment is assembled. I am looking to use the ‘save bodies’ command to make a set of parts and

associated drawings of these components to have them machined.

However, when I make drawings of the parts I cannot use the hole call-out tool and get thread data. Is there

an option somewhere to get this data or am I missing something?

Thanks,

Peter

Deepak Gupta


I guess no but these post should be helpful:

Detailing a Multibody Part-1

Detailing a Multibody Part-2




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Exploding a Multi-body part -1

Exploding a Multi-body part -2

Peter


I was using relative views before and only showing the required pieces to machine but the

shop has requested individual drawings with associated part files. I guess I will either have to

manually enter all hole info, or make each of the parts individually and assembly them

together. It’s too bad because a top-down approach would be much more effective for mostweldments but not having hole data is a major deal-breaker.

Thanks Anyway,

Peter

Deepak Gupta


How about adding the hole details at assembly level and same can be propagated to

parts as well.

Peter


Similarly to adding the hole in the part itself, that would provide the hole dataas required. However, it means to change the weldment geometry and hole

locations you would have to go to two separate files (update the geometry in

the top level part then modify the holes in the assembly) eliminating some of

the benefit of having a master part. We have multiple users accessing files

without a PDM so file structure must be as intuitive as possible.

It is a good idea though and may be helpful in some instances.

Thanks,

Peter

Deepak Gupta


I would rather suggest you to talk to manufacturing people and explainthem the benefit of using Weldment or Multi-body rather than going for

assembly and further more complications.

ELANGOVA


hi i have created a frame assembly which contains about 20 parts but while saving it unfortunately i chancedthe file type as part . my problem is nw i cant open tat in assembly if i open its showing the whole assembly

as a part how can i convet it into assembly? pls help am in troble

[email protected]

Deepak Gupta


The option with you have is to use the above method I have suggested and convert the part into

assembly but they’ll be still dependent on the part file.

The other option is to build them again..




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BTW what option you used for assembly/parts: Top down or Bottom up??

ELANGOVA


its bottom up assembly. but i cant find cut list in my part and its nt a solid part surface part

how to change surface body into solid body

Jilling

on February 24, 2011 at 11:50 PM said:

Hi all, normally when creating a multi bodied part, you know which parts are the same and you don’t want

listed as induvidual parts in your BOM. Before I save the bodies (after renaming!) and creating the assembly,

I use the body delete feature to erase the duplicates. Of course, they will be missing in the assembly so have

to be added manually This may not be too hard to do, especially when using a pattern or better still, a

feature driven pattern.

Dwayne Gavel

on February 20, 2011 at 5:17 AM said:

Can the new parts that are physically the same be combined into one line in the assembly BOM?

Deepak Gupta


Dwayne, you can’t combine them. And I didn’t understand the concept or idea of combining them. If

they are same, they why the same part can’t be used via component pattern or inserting again.

Dwayne Gavel


They (the legs) were combined in a cut list when the models was a weldment part, so it just

seems counter-productive to have to alter the resulting assembly to get the desired BOM

results. While it would be manageable on a simple example like this, such assembly

restructuring on a more complex model might be considerably more difficult …

Deepak Gupta


Actually when you convert them to assembly, the bodies go as different parts. So in

the BOM they show as two different parts.

Dwayne Gavel


Hi Deepak, I think there are actually 5 different line items in the BOM … 1x

table top & 4x individual legs. Since the legs are all the same, I was hoping

they would be recognized that way in the newly created assembly. I guess not.

Deepak Gupta


Yes there are 5 items with 4 leg as same. But they don’t behave same

while you convert them to assembly.

You raised a very valid point here and I’ll see if I can put up an

Enhancement request.




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Samuel

on October 15, 2012 at 5:15 AM said:

Has this been fixed (at least as of SW2012)?

I’m running SW 2011 and the issue described here is still a

problem.

That is, when converting a weldment to an assembly, the “cut-

list grouping” is completely lost. In the resulting assembly file,

parts that are identical are treated as different parts instead ofbeing treated as different instances of the same part.

Deepak Gupta

on October 15, 2012 at 11:12 PM said:

There is no direct way to achieve it and this is the same

behavior in older versions too. However I’ve found a

workaround and will post soon.

Matt

on November 18, 2010 at 9:34 PM said:

That’s a cool trick! I didn’t know you could do that. I do a lot of stuff like this at work and when I begin it

seems like I either have to make a choice to draw it as a weldment or an assembly. This allows me to do

both and make drawings of individual components if I start it as a weldment. I like how the assembly updates

along with the original weldment when you modify your original weldment sketch.

OP


SW 2011

Deepak Gupta


This works with SW206 and above.

Balaji

on March 28, 2013 at 4:23 PM said:

Hi deepak, I want to save multibody into individual parts. I tried the the API

CreateSaveBodyFeature, but it didn’t work. Can you please provide me the API / macro to

save a multibody into individual parts.


solidworks weldment to asseembly

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