What is the "Best Practice" for...

[Muggs]

Hello All,

What is the best way to make a weldment?
I usually make all the "parts" then create an assembly of those parts to
make my weldment, and then insert that as a sub-assembly into the main
assembly.

Is there a "better" or more conventional way to do this, I come from a
Injection molded plastics background, and never did do my weldments, so
please forgive my ignorance.

TIA,
Muggs

 

[Arlin]

Hello All,

What is the best way to make a weldment?
I usually make all the "parts" then create an assembly of those parts to
make my weldment, and then insert that as a sub-assembly into the main
assembly.

Is there a "better" or more conventional way to do this, I come from a
Injection molded plastics background, and never did do my weldments, so
please forgive my ignorance.

TIA,
Muggs

That is pretty much the way I have always done it. Incontext and layout
sketches can also be used to help with the design process.

It largely depends on your environment. Some also use multibodies and
split part functions for weldments. 2004 also has some new 'weldment'
functionality. I have always found these methods more restricting and
the new 2004 features don't work well with sheet metal weldments.

Also, some companies treat every piece of a weldment as a separate
unique part, while others treat the parts as separate sheets to the
weldment drawing. Thus, with the latter method, parts are never
revised, only the weldment as a whole.

I guess there is no 'best way.' It depends largely on how you wish to
manage and build weldments.

 

[Corey Scheich]

We do basically the same thing. To help with your bom if you go into
configuration properties there is a checkbox at the bottom labeled don't
show child components in BOM. You may want this checked. In 2004 there are
new weldment features. These look promising, though I have not been able to
work with them much. I did create a drawing of a trailer. It was very
simple to create and edit, and you don't have to deal with mates. We may
use this method in the future, the only problem we haven't worked out is
assigning individual part numbers to each unique part in the model.

Regards,

Corey Scheich

 

[Merry Owen]

2004 weldments is the way to go!! I have been using it for a while and find
it heaps quicker (providing you have a weldment library for your local steel
sections) than creating assemblies. If you pre-load the custom properties
into the weldment library features and create a few weldment 'cut list'
templates to suit your needs, you will find it can give you all of the info
that can currently get from an assembly.

Don't forget that you can also create library features of common wedments
items such as: lifting lugs, cleats, base plates, etc.

Merry

 

[Muggs]

Thanks Guys,

I just started up my subscription again, so I'll be looking forward to
SW2004.

Muggs