I would like to have your opinions on the use of screws in assemblies and drawings (under SolidWorks 2016). Personally, until now I never included it because it was too heavy to manage and not necessarily useful, but I would like to start putting screws in my assemblies:
Do you use a personal library or rather the toolbox which is rather well provided but not modifiable (in addition the names of the parts are in English)?
Do you do multiple configurations with and without screws?
How do you manage all these components in the drawing BOMs?
How do you name them in the assembly and in the plan nomenclatures (full name or reference)?
I would like to have different opinions in order to know the pros and cons of each solution.
So I went for a library that can be configured according to the size. In addition, the Toolbox needs a pro version and it has its limitations.
Afterwards, for the names I would be more on a typology than on a reference that can move and that will have to be managed by configuration. But there is nothing to prevent you from inserting a "reference" property that can be used for certain plans.
As for inserting them into the assemblies, it depends on the need but it is easily manageable in a specific folder with display status or configuration to show them or not.
Hello, in my company it depends on the times we include them and sometimes not
Personally we use a custom library that we feed as needed, this allows us to be able to set up each screw and give it a different purchase number for each dimension. simpler for the management of purchases later when you have 50 different types of screws in an assembly, then you just have to create a Screws folder in your creation tree and it's up to you to choose if you want them to appear or not in your nomenclature, after weighing the pros or cons I can't tell you because I've always worked in this way.
A quick subsidiary question about the personal component library:
To create for example an H head screw, do you have to make a single part file and apply a part family with all sizes (M3x12, M3x16, M3x20..... M8x50... etc)?
That's up to you but yes you can do it like that and you can even start from the Visiativ library which already works like that to start a base, that's what I did.
The Toolbox tool is a powerful tool but often criticized because it is not well known. Its configuration is quite tedious. But you can create a toolbox folder with your own "house standard" where you add all the custom properties you want and all the missing dimensions. Another point is that Toolbox files are less heavy in an assembly than library parts.
At the risk of being thrown stones, I'm all Toolbox! I can't wait for this tool to be a little more user-friendly and it will be perfect! :)
create configs when needed, or create each part independently (it seems to me)
I'm in favor of: personal library with Excel, more powerful, allows you to go fast, allows you to "formulate" values, to make equations in Excel, mastery of mass properties, etc...
Also allows you to purge files before distributing them...
For your information, it is possible to deToolbox a file to put it in your library, to manage it yourself, to put an excel in it, etc...
And as a reminder , a global library, for me it contains:
95% SW file built (with the vast majority of Excel, or bring in little by little)
05% (or less) of "3D Import" file (dead bodies)
(with interest in reducing this figure to gain resources in the medium/large ASM)