Drawing Units vs Part Units

Myself being a newbie converted from ProE I don't understand the principle
behind having to set up units in part/assemblies and then once again in the
drawings. I have always created models in the past using ProE with all my
unit/tolerance/precision values enbedded in the part.

I've done the same with a simple Solidworks part and now time to create the
drawing. I imported the dimensions into the drawing and all my hard work of
setting up the design unit intent in the part seem to be gone. It looks like
I now have to go and recreate all my unit needs. This means making some
units fractional, 2 pls or 3 pls decimal and some with or without tolerance.

Is there a setting I'm missing in my drawing document properties that import
the dimensions as modeled in the part/assembly without the need to duplicate
work efforts?

 

I don't know of anything you are missing. Generally you model in whatever
units you want, be they inch or metric, etc., and then when it comes to
drawing time, you set the global setting to whatever is the most prevalent.
Then individually modify any dims that you want to change from the global.
To aid in that, look up Dimension Favorites.

WT

 

Wayne,

I noticed that after altering the drawing properties units to include both
decimal and fractions I was getting better results. To top that off if I
uncheck using documents precision in the drawing it seems to stick with the
model preferences as desired. I'm sure I need to tweek some settings here.

My main objective is that the model tolerences and decimal/fractional
precision should always be utilized for documentation. Not everyone examines
a drawing file for use in other assemblies. The model should contain all the
relevent info.

Thanks for the guidence that led me to investigate many of the options
located in the menus. I don't know why you would want to change precision or
tolerance to a document that differs from the model, but I guess someone
needs that function to incorporate it.

 

I would say you need yet to set up your units in your drawing templates.

Drawings, parts, and assembly's all function indecently of each other with
their own unit settings.

Jay

 

....indecently...????? I know SW sometimes has issues, but I've never
actually seen anything between them that makes me cover my eyes. Gross and
disgusting, yes, but indecent, no. (Maybe you meant independently.)


WT

 

There are advantages to using separate precision in Drawings and in
Parts, and you may wish to set up your templates accordingly. I set
precision in Drawings to a default 3 decimal places (and fractions to
32), whereas in Parts (and also Assemblies) I set precision to at least
5 decimal places if not 8. The reason for the latter? Two, actually:
1) If I'm designing in fractional equivalents, which I find to be
expedient at times, I can see the EXACT value represented in sketches
rather than a rounded-off approximation.
2) I may want to Measure and be sure I'm not missing some spurious
trailing decimal values out 6 or 7 or 8 places from the decimal point I
don't need to change the Options (in the Measure dialog box) to set
precision higher each time I measure something. This second point is
often of more importance in Assemblies.

I can get both of these advantages without having to change default
precision in Drawings by having the precision set separately.

(Just BTW, in the title block of my Drawing template I also set a value
for fractional tolerance which will allow me to utilize a different
default tolerance simply by changing a dimension to Fractional from
Decimal . . . when I'm dealing in fractional equivalents. And that's
one reason why sometimes I find it expedient to design in fractional
equivalents.)

Mark 'Sporky' Stapleton
Charlotte, NC