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Base part method - how much detail to put into master part

Question asked by Paul Murdock on Feb 8, 2012
Latest reply on Apr 28, 2012 by Jerry Steiger

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G'day,

followed the tutorial on the advanced consumer design (mouse part) -

I am creating a plastic enclosure - however I am curious how much detail should be included in the base part - as opposed to the individuals parts after they have been cut out and inserted into their own part file.

Should the shelling and and openings, grooves, lips be done in the master part? Or should I just keep to the basic overall shape and split planes and then do the shelling, and all other features on each individual part.

What about features that may span multiple parts (like an opening?) should those be done on the master part?

cheers!

Paul

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Steve Calvert Feb 9, 2012 9:04 AM
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I did a plastic keypad cover and had some of the same questions you're having. Features like the plastic snap will need to be done at the master level as well as the groove. Any overall shape feature should be there as well. Mounting bosses for PCBs are ok to be at part level unless they're being used to place other features. I'd say any feature that works on both parts will need to be at the master level. You can use your own judgement and you'll find the best solution. Make sure you name your features, it sure makes for better editing downstream.

I take it from the G'day that you're from down under?

Steve C
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1-4EQZK9 Feb 9, 2012 1:48 PM
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Hi Paul,

the answer is simple and taken from the Master Model Technique that was popularized in the late 80's early '90's:

Only put geometry into the base part that will be shared by two or more derived parts. This is of course if your engineering dept.'s workflow is such that you will be dividing up the work. If not, and one individual will be doing the entire design, including detailing the parts, then you can do all modeling and detailing in the base are - via multi-bodies, and then in the end of the tree use Save Bodies to derive them out for BOM and main assembly. This makes for a bigger file but much easier (and more robust) on referencing between features. At the stage of detailing, I often "folderize" my work so the first folder is the master model - i.e. main shape, and then subsequently I create details and folderize them for each of the "parts" (bodies that represent parts.)

Was the mouse tutorial informative (I helped write it)? If not, what else can we include to inform you better on this subject?

Regards

Mark
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- Chris Lindloff @ 1-4EQZK9 on Feb 10, 2012 10:45 AM
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  I too like the multibody for and entire project, since I am designing and detailing all of the components. My problem is the large files it leads too, sometimes over 200Mb for a part file. These have long rebuild times, and with the long feature tree (300+ features) a little change can create bloodshed. Or even worse just deleting a feature and watching all the children go away destroying my design intent.
  
  Any other suggestions for creating more and more complex multi body parts. I do a lot of LED lighting enclosures and housing. These can be made of a trim ring, a lens, an assembly backing plate, LED's, circuit board, wiring, connectors. . . . The nice thing with the multibody is my housing cutout sketch can be directly used for creating the lens shapes. Also planes can be shared easily with all the components. In assembly it seems to convert a lot of sketches, planes, surfaces....
  
  I have found when trying assemblies, even in context ones, I eventually lose references some how. Or creating different renditions of just one compenent will lead to failure in context to another unchanged component. With multi body I have an entire history right in front of me, no matter how many renditions I have worked through, since I usually save a new version of my design each day. This way I can create a tempory assembly and overlay yesterday version with todays, to ensure that the slight changes I am making are going the right "direction"
  
  I'd be interested in others complex multibody techniques!
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Paul Murdock Feb 10, 2012 12:08 AM
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Thanks Steve and Mark!

Very helpful indeed! I actually found the mouse tutorial to be spot on in giving me a good quick big picture approach to the problem. As I go through the process of my enclosure I'll see if anything pops up that might be useful to include in such a tutorial - so far so good though.

I actually spent a few years in the land down under.. but I'm back in the states in good ole' Utah these days - certainly the aussie way hasn't rubbed off yet.. too right... you're not wrong.

cheers!
Paul
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Paul Murdock Feb 10, 2012 12:46 AM
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Had a little chance to play with the multibody technique.. Once you perform the Save Bodies feature in the tree on the master part all the features before that propogate without problem to the assembly and part files that were created from the Save Bodies..

However I found that I would go in and add some additional features to the master part but they weren't reflecting in the assembly. turns out all the features I added were added after the Save Bodies line item in the feature tree. So it became a little bit of a hassle to see that a feature hadn't been propagated because it was adding all the new features in the master part after the Save Bodies..

I suppose realistically you'll probably get your whole master part designed up FIRST and then go and do a Save Bodies - then this isn't an issue..

For this reason I think I like the Base Part or Split part technique better.. am I doing something wrong perhaps on the multibody technique?

cheers!
Paul
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- Jerry Steiger @ Paul Murdock on Apr 28, 2012 11:58 AM
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  Paul,
  
  If you use the master body technique very often you soon get into the habit of immediately rolling back before the Save Bodies when you want to edit the master. If you forget, it's usually not a problem to drag the features around to get the right order.
  
  I'm a bit confused by your reference to Base Part and Split Part techniques as well as the Multi-body technique. How do you differentiate between the three?
  
  Jerry Steiger
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Base part method - how much detail to put into master part

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