Component Replace without Failure/Freeze

It was early in the week. Maybe I wasn't quite back from the weekend, who knows. I replaced some components in an assembly, using layout. This often works flawlessly. This time, as the parts I replaced had patterned base features used for later Reference patterns, every one of "referenced" components failed/froze. Any best practices on how to avoid this? Mass 'Reroute fetures'? This was a lost day of tedium; help would be much appreciated.

David Janes (newly newbied, utterly humbled)

 

Hi David,

another ProE annoyance indeed ... and it is still implemented 8-(

The long way around this is: first delete the original pattern,
replace all components using layout, then recreate patterns
and pick all referring components to pattern them again.

Since it is possible to redefine the pattern options of the
"master" feature to table driven one can save complex patterns
and it is good practice to have the related components arranged
into a single subassembly (e. g. bolt, nut & washer) to ease pain.

Why the replacement ob subassemblies can´t work on the whole pattern
is beyond me ... whenever I know beforehand that a "replace" task
will become necessary I make both feature (e. g. hole) and subassembly
(e. g. bolt & nut) after a table driven "master" (e. g. axis, point),
and make multiple use of the pattern table.

Walther

 

...
"Here's what I thought of doing, haven't tried it yet. Hide the
old component, assemble new
without ref to old; take pattern (original comp?) and reroute
to new comp refs; delete old
comp. Should be clean, maybe a little more work than Replace
but, in the long run, less
trouble."


I have done exactly that, both where patterns were involved and where
they weren't; in cases where "Replace" would not be "adept" enough. It
works like a charm.

 

What version are you working with? WF4.0 has an awesome feature for
this. It allows you to change the references (parent and child) of
the components when you replace by unrelated component.

 

What version are you working with? WF4.0 has an awesome feature for
this. It allows you to change the references (parent and child) of
the components when you replace by unrelated component.
At work I'm on WF2 & WF4, at home, WF3. Is this new feature documented somewhere? Sounds interesting. Have you used it?

David Janes

 

...
"Here's what I thought of doing, haven't tried it yet. Hide the
old component, assemble new
without ref to old; take pattern (original comp?) and reroute
to new comp refs; delete old
comp. Should be clean, maybe a little more work than Replace
but, in the long run, less
trouble."


I have done exactly that, both where patterns were involved and where
they weren't; in cases where "Replace" would not be "adept" enough. It
works like a charm.
Oh, great, good to hear! Now, all I have to do is be sharp enough on a Monday morning to remember to try it? Did you find the components with the Binoculars and build a query? Would be really cute if you could pick components of a certain name and mated to a certain surface. But, I guess if they're reference patterned, it'd just be all the components (groups) in that pattern.

David Janes

 

Replace a component, set the type to Unrelated, and there is button in
the lower-left corner of the Replace dialog box (Map refs?) that allows
you to view all downstream references to the component being replaced as
well as the replacing component.

In this box you pick the analogous reference on the new part for each
reference on the old. It will walk you through it, or you can work
asynchronously from the list of references.

I've used it with very good success.

That said, ref patterns have a bad habit of failing sometimes. It
happens just enough to bother me but never costs me enough time to log
tickets and try to attack it by SPR. Oh well.

Dave

 

...
"Here's what I thought of doing, haven't tried it yet. Hide the
old component, assemble new
without ref to old; take pattern (original comp?) and reroute
to new comp refs; delete old
comp. Should be clean, maybe a little more work than Replace
but, in the long run, less
trouble."


I have done exactly that, both where patterns were involved and where
they weren't; in cases where "Replace" would not be "adept" enough. It
works like a charm.
Oh, great, good to hear! Now, all I have to do is be sharp enough on a Monday morning to remember to try it? Did you find the components with the Binoculars and build a query? Would be really cute if you could pick components of a certain name and mated to a certain surface. But, I guess if they're reference patterned, it'd just be all the components (groups) in that pattern.

David Janes
And, with foresight, here's a way I learned today, using "Duplicate Objects" in Intralink. Assembly relations are preserved, new configurations built with new components, all previous relations captured in metadata, passed to Pro/e. And any drawings associated to the components get duplicated with new names as well. And, yeah, they're fully dimensioned, as before.

Check out an assembly/drawing, in workspace with the Select drawing box checked (be sure to hit Update button), select all that need to change/duplicate and do "Duplicate Objects". In relationships, pick None, hightlight and clone. You've got an entirely new assembly, with new parts/components, assembled correctly, each with drawings named for new components, for almost zero cost to consumer.

Yes, this seems like a lot more "fire power" than is needed to "replace" components. But, consider that, when you start replacing components, you really ought to be replacing configurations. Then, what you need is a way to track subtle variations in configuration, not the mechanics of producing them. Intralink can easily handle that. (I hear the disturbing news that you lose both abilities with PDMLink! Confirm, deny!?!)

David Janes