Let's say I wanted to made each of the 4 open cabinets a different size.
How would I accomplish this in a way that would be very efficient?
Right now I'm using the configuration publisher, and each cabinet (and it's parts) is equation driven. So each cabinet has many configurations, sometimes 80-100 at this point, and it's growing quickly, since we do purely custom jobs (no ordering from a catalog here). It's amazing how many different configs of a simple cabinet you can have.
We use different models to make these different sizes, cabinetA, cabinetB, cabinetC, cabinetD. And each of those cabinets have their own unique parts, bottomA, bottomB, shelfA, shelfB etc....since you can't have the same equation driven part be different sizes in the same assembly.
To compound this, there are multuple drafters/engineers accessing these models via the PDM. So running in to cabinets that are already checked out is a common problem.
Is there a way to simply drag in an assembly and have it be it's own unique assembly, saved to it's own unique folder? So when I add the same type of cabinet in the next room, size it to what it needs to be, it doesn't affect the other assemblies?
Thanks!
With the assembly open, go to File > Pack and Go. That operation copies the assembly and all it's components to a new location, and updates the links. You can also re-name components as part of the process by double-clicking on the file name in the "Save to Name" column, or there is an option near the bottom of the dialog box to add a prefix or suffix to each new file name. I would recommend using one of these re-naming options to avoid having many files with the same name. When you have made all your selections and clicked OK, be sure to close the file you have open, because it's still the old one. Then you can open the new assembly and make changes to it or any of it's components without affecting the originals.