SolidWorks 2011 Assemblies Bible - Matt Lombard [119]
Organizing Toolbox parts in an assembly
Assembly FeatureManagers are hard enough to manage when they become full of parts; they become even more unmanageable when they also need to include the many types of fastener parts. As a result, you should organize fasteners, as well as any other type of part that is found in large quantities in the assembly, into folders, as shown in Figure 14.12. You should also group parts of the same size or function together.
FIGURE 14.12
Organizing Toolbox parts into folders
Working recommendations
After spending almost an entire chapter saying what you should not do, it is finally time to describe what you should do. Toolbox can be problematic if you install and use it improperly; however, the following recommendations work in most situations.
Just to be clear about this, the most serious file management problems with Toolbox show up when you use configurations, which just happens to be the default option. Still, configurations are generally useful, and especially with library parts, but a Toolbox implementation with configurations is challenging. Again, this is because of the file management issue of different users having the same part names with different content (Toolbox parts with or without certain configurations created). The entire problem would be solved if SolidWorks installed Toolbox with all of the configurations created for all the parts. However, you might need an extra hard drive to store it.
Working with the simplest setup that works
If you are a single user who does not share files over a network with other users, then installing SolidWorks and Toolbox with the default settings should work for you. This appears to be the arrangement that the developers had in mind when they programmed the tool, because it is the only scenario in which it works as expected.
Be careful if you ever receive an assembly from another Toolbox user, because this is the one situation that can cause immediate trouble. If the user also sends his Toolbox parts, then you should open all these parts before you open his assembly so that the assembly is certain to access his Toolbox parts instead of yours.
If you need to include materials and mass-populate custom properties, then you should go through the exercise of building all the configurations of all the parts, and then use an auto-created design table to drive the properties. If you have more than one user, then this technique will not work for you, unless both users work independently from one another.
Using a complete setup that works
If you have multiple users that share assemblies, then you need to also share the Toolbox library. If you share assemblies only among yourselves, meaning only with other users who are also sharing Toolbox, then sharing Toolbox should be good enough. However, if you share assemblies with Toolbox users who do not share your Toolbox library, then you should probably go through the exercise of populating all your parts with all the available configurations. If you do not receive assemblies from outside of your group with Toolbox parts in the assemblies and you have network performance problems, it may be a good idea to install Toolbox locally, but to use the Create Parts setting, where the parts are on a shared network location.
If you use a Product Data Management (PDM) system, then you should definitely install Toolbox locally and use the Create Parts setting. The sharing occurs through the PDM system. Library parts should be non-revision managed parts, but you may want to have a representation of the fasteners so that you can perform where-used searches and create BOMs.
The least problematic technique is to turn Toolbox off altogether and either buy or make your own library of static parts. You can then distribute these files internally in your organization,