Hello,
I have a part in my design library that I would like to be able to drag and drop non-linked copies of into my assembly. The idea is that my library part has undefined dimensions, and when I drop it in I can then define the dimensions to my assembly without changing the original as there will be multiple variations of the same part. I understand there are ways to do this with pack and go and what not but I am looking to do this easily. I am using 2016.
Thanks
Thanks Frank,
I found that 'make independent' shortly after I posted. That seems to be my best option. I was really hoping that there was a keyboard modifier I was missing to be able to do this from dragging from the library, but it guess it doesn't exist. Maybe a future feature?
Thanks again,
Hi Joel,
I like the idea of having i.e. a "CTRL" + Drag feature that would automatically open up the save as dialog.
Kind regards
Frank
SOLIDWORKS Product Definition Team
Frank,
I think this is related so maybe you can clear this up for me. Like Joel I have part profiles (the profile of a structural I-beam for example) that I will drag from the design library and place as a new part and I am asked if I want a Derived part or not. As a rule I desire to make this part unlinked to the original and save it as a new part number. Commonly the library part is stored as a 12" long part and I want to save it at a different length and give it a new part number and description saving the material information.
What is the difference between derived or not?
Hi Jim,
are you talking about this message:
Kind regards
Frank
SOLIDWORKS Product Definition Team
Yes, that is the one.
Hi Jim,
you will always get this message when you drag a part into another part. This is different from dragging a part into an assembly:
Possible workflows are that you have i.e. a generic stock component that gets individually modified based on i.e. customer requirements. Imagine a valve housing that is always identical but based on customer requirements it will get individual holes.
Whereas when you insert the design library part into an assembly you won't see this message and you can apply the different methods to make the part independent mentioned earlier.
Kind regards
Frank
SOLIDWORKS Product Definition Team
Frank,
That does help make it clearer as to what is happening and what to choose. If I select no I get an extruded feature that can be edited and does not change the original part.
One other example for selecting a derived part would be for machining a part. I could place a cast or welded part in a new part and then add the machining steps to get a new part for the finished product. This has potential.
Thank you
Hi Joel,
there are several ways to do this (without claiming that these are all):
You will be asked to save the component to a different location.
Creating a virtual component will break the link to the original part and later on you could save it to your desired location.
You will get different options whether the newly created part will be used as the new reference or not.
Hope this helps.
Kind regards
Frank
SOLIDWORKS Product Definition Team