Hi All

This is just a bit of an experiment my end, as usual I thought it would be easy but it's got me stuck.

In my first simple case I would like to construct a cube the same volume as an extruded hex.

I made a base part and added a property equaling SW-Volume, I then inserted this into another part with the custom property hoping I could use this in an equation, but Solidworks will not accept it.

'The Syntax of this equation is Incorrect'

I narrowed it down to the custom property, in the base part I can use it no problem, for example here to create a global variable

but not in my second part

So I thought I'd go with that instead and use model dimensions

but alas no global variable came through, just the sketch dims

For this shape I know I could just do the math myself (I'll probably just add a new unabsorbed sketch)  but I would much prefer to learn. It seems like there must be a much better way.

edit: Unabsorbed Sketch works, but for me it's one of my daft work-a-rounds. 

Why doesn't my first attempt work? (I'm thinking SW recognises the property as Text) Can I do this all in one part? Is it possible to exclude some bodies or features from the volume calculations within a part?  I suppose I would like to know when the Volume is calculated.  In this situation it would be nice if I could use SW-Volume in Equations and it gave me the 'current' volume at that point in time during the rebuild, but I imagine that would also cause more problems..what If I add features later.  Circular rebuilds and errors!!

Thanks