I'm trying to bring down values contained in variables in an assembly to the assemblies/parts that compose it.
I lay the foundations for you, We have an in-house Solidworks 3D configurator that allows us to handle redundant projects. The major difference is the length and width of our product. This information is entered in 2 global variables and thanks to equations, these values modify all the assemblies and parts impacted.
I have a project to use bills of materials in order to fill in the fields of our launch sheets more automatically. I've made good progress using the PDM BOMs → CSV export But I'm stumbling over how to get these 2 values (length width) down to the parts/assemblies, in a property readable by the PDM nomenclature for example.
Could we have more information on this point please: when you say " modify ", do you mean " change configuration " or " change parameters "?
For your problem, 2 elements come to mind:
The SW PDM BOM dialog box where, for a column, you can look for a variable in certain values of the reference to define a link attribute (i.e. an attribute that belongs to the parent child hierarchical link and not to a part or assembly)
The ability to share equations between models with the ability to permalink with text files with the Link to External File option so that changes to the text file are propagated to the model
I'll look for the second point because I have little hope for the first one that is usually used for position numbers or to retrieve component references.
But it's really going to depend on how you build your product structure. Hence my first question.
Global variables adapt the 3D to these values. For example, I define my overall dimensions in the global variables, all part designs are adapted to these values.
By scratching a little, with the SmartProperties, I come to retrieve the values of my global variables to enter them in a new custom property. In my PDM nomenclature, I have created columns to retrieve them. But I have the impression that it is the custom properties related to the document that come out of it and not to the configuration.
If we are talking about the nomenclature tab of PDM in Windows Explorer, it calls the data according to the active configuration in the model. On the other hand, you must correctly configure the variable to be displayed in the column:
Useful information: If you use virtual assemblies or subassemblies, EPDM BOMs can also be bad. I just reported the bug to SW.
This is related to the fact that EPDM has a lot of trouble managing virtual assemblies and that the BOMs that EPDM stores from MEPs are not managed by EPDM as exports of the MEP table but as a reading of the properties stored in EPDM for the different components.
