Assembly from Part No mates required | Boxer's SolidWorks Blog

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Assembly from Part No mates required

Posted on November 10, 2010

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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 lets 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, youll 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 youll see Save Bodies property manager. Click on Auto-assign Names.

7. The names which you have given in step 4 will be applied to the bodies here. Dont 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
dont, 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.

IF YOU FOUND TH IS POST USEFUL, PLEASE SHARE IT!

G OO GL E+

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Assembly from Part No mates required | Boxer's SolidWorks Blog

Deepak Gupta

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This entry was posted in Assembly, 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/] .

25 THOUGHTS ON ASSEMBLY FROM PART NO MATES REQUIRED

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 dont 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 cant do that. Not sure if there would be anything in future version of SoldiWorks. The best
you 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 didnt know it.

It could make the job, the only thing, Ive 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
on June 21, 2011 at 10:38 PM said:

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
on June 21, 2011 at 11:02 PM said:

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
on June 21, 2011 at 11:16 PM said:

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. Its too bad because a top-down approach would be much more effective for most
weldments but not having hole data is a major deal-breaker.
Thanks Anyway,
Peter

Deepak Gupta
on June 21, 2011 at 11:41 PM said:

How about adding the hole details at assembly level and same can be propagated to
parts as well.

Peter
on June 22, 2011 at 12:17 AM said:

Similarly to adding the hole in the part itself, that would provide the hole data
as 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
on June 22, 2011 at 12:38 AM said:

I would rather suggest you to talk to manufacturing people and explain

them the benefit of using Weldment or Multi-body rather than going for
assembly and further more complications.

ELANGOVA
on June 18, 2011 at 7:00 PM said:

hi i have created a frame assembly which contains about 20 parts but while saving it unfortunately i chanced
the 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
eelangovanmech@gmail.com

Deepak Gupta
on June 18, 2011 at 8:30 PM said:

The option with you have is to use the above method I have suggested and convert the part into
assembly but theyll 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
on June 19, 2011 at 12:39 PM said:

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 dont 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
on February 20, 2011 at 10:46 PM said:

Dwayne, you cant combine them. And I didnt understand the concept or idea of combining them. If
they are same, they why the same part cant be used via component pattern or inserting again.

Dwayne Gavel
on February 21, 2011 at 7:28 PM said:

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
on February 21, 2011 at 8:21 PM said:

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
on February 21, 2011 at 8:34 PM said:

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
on February 21, 2011 at 11:17 PM said:

Yes there are 5 items with 4 leg as same. But they dont behave same
while you convert them to assembly.
You raised a very valid point here and Ill 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)?

Im running SW 2011 and the issue described here is still a
problem.
That is, when converting a weldment to an assembly, the cutlist grouping is completely lost. In the resulting assembly file,
parts that are identical are treated as different parts instead of
being 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 Ive found a
workaround and will post soon.

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

Thats a cool trick! I didnt 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
on November 10, 2010 at 6:09 PM said:

SW 2011

Deepak Gupta
on November 10, 2010 at 8:07 PM said:

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 didnt work. Can you please provide me the API / macro to
save a multibody into individual parts.

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