I am using Solidworks 2018 Student Edition and I have a question about making parts partially independent.
I have a part and want to alter a number of it's dimensions once the part is in an assembly without these changes effecting the other instances of this part in the assembly and I don't want to make each part independent. Furthermore the dimensions need to be controlled by the assembly. I can't currently see away of achieving this and want to ask if anyone knows if the parts could vary in the assembly without making them independent.
To give more context, I have a part (call it Part A) that I wish to use a large number of times in an assembly. Part A is composed of 1 to 4 repetitions of another part (call it Part B). Part B has 3 dimensions that need to be able to varied, each repetition in a Part A differs from the other repetitions and how these instances of Part B differ will also differ for each Part A. For each Part B these 3 dimensions also need to be controlled by constrains and geometry in the assembly that Part A is being placed in.
I've been able to create Part A and create configurations that allow me to control the number of instance of Part B in an instance of Part A, but when I place part A in an assembly and constraint the sketch of one of it's Part Bs to the assembly's geometry the changes to Part B are shared across all instances of Part B.
Thus far I've resorted to making all instance of Part B independent but this is a headache as any change to the dimensions or geometry of Part B has to be repeated for every Part B instance used in the final assembly. I feel there must be a way to be able to differ the 3 variable dimensions without resorting to making every Part B completely independent, but I cannot seem to find it.
I might have a more fundamental problem with my approach. If anyone knows if this semi-independence can be achieved and if so how, it would be a great help.
Aubrey Stark-Toller
The way I do this is to create a Skeleton Sketch Part (SSP) and use that part to control everything within the assembly, I would suggest to have every part that is different having its own part number, which makes it easier to work with. Once you understand that process then you can start to mess with configurations and other methods.
There are threads here on the Forum that explain the SSP process, go to the home page of the forum and do a search.