Part 1 described replacing components within an assembly – this example describes choosing different assemblies to create the customer requirements.
With DriveWorksXpress you select an assembly to drive and create a user form and rules that control that assembly.
With DriveWorks your user forms are detached from the assembly, meaning rules can decide which assembly is the best one to use as the starting point to create the new data from.
This has similar implications on the automation project as described in my last post with the added benefit of keeping your base model simple. There is no need to stuff every aspect of your product range into one model so that it can morph into every available option. You can simply choose which model set best fits the selections made on the user forms.
Consider the following assemblies:
These models have some similar parts, but the main design intent is very different.
The 2 models both require the user to specify overall size and a safe working load for the equipment to carry. The difference being, when the specified height is below 3 meters, or the width is narrower than 5 meters, or the safe working load is less than 3000Kg the resulting design will be the portable apparatus. Otherwise the resulting design will be the heavier duty, fixed type.
How?
You can assign as many base models as are required to a project. The trick is in the rule you apply to the File Name parameter, of the top level assembly, for each of the models.
Basically what needs to happen is each file name results in a valid name to apply to the model set when the models ARE required. When they are NOT required the rule needs to result in Delete.
When DriveWorks establishes what is required to be generated it will look at the top level name and generate everything for it if the File Name does not equal delete.
Take a look at this video to see this process in action...
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