SolidWorks 2011 Assemblies Bible - Matt Lombard [133]
Although this is not explained very well in any of the documentation, the Help, as well as reseller demonstrations, on the topic generally recommend that you simply delete the training assembly once you are done with it because it is not needed any more. This implies that you should delete all the mates in an assembly or the sketch relations in a part. How do you edit the Smart Component if you delete the assembly in which it is created?
It turns out that all the information to re-create the training assembly is stored in the Smart Component. This includes the in-context feature (which is stored as a library feature) and the locations of any associated components, as well as the configurator table. Figure 15.26 shows a part of the FeatureManager of a Smart Component. As you can see, the in-context feature, the associated components, and the face references are all listed there.
Deleting the training assembly does not cause any data to be lost; you will delete an assembly in the following section.
FIGURE 15.26
Part of the FeatureManager of a Smart Component
Editing Smart Components
Expanding on the discussion about whether or not to keep the training assembly file, here is a little exercise that you can try. Make a Smart Component by going through the preceding steps, using the following tutorial or creating one of your own. Just make a simple Smart Component with perhaps one associated component and an in-context feature. Then go ahead and delete the training assembly.
With the defining assembly gone, there appears to be no way to edit the setup of the Smart Component. RMB+click the Smart Feature folder in the FeatureManager of the Smart Component and select Edit in Defining Assembly, as shown in Figure 15.27. SolidWorks re-creates the defining assembly from the data that is stored in the Smart Component. This assembly is saved in a system temp folder using the name The Edit Definition button appears in the upper-right corner of the graphics window and is shown to the right in Figure 15.27. If you click this button, the Smart Component PropertyManager interface appears again, enabling you to change the selection of associated components and in-context features, to change the auto-size setting, or edit the configurator table. Thus, all the settings are preserved, and the training assembly exists only as a phantom in a temp directory. Although this appears to be counterintuitive, it works. FIGURE 15.27 Selecting the Edit in Defining Assembly command Tutorial: Working with Smart Components This tutorial guides you through creating a Smart Component that only uses the auto-sizing feature. This enables you to manually create parts that snap to size like Toolbox parts, but without using Toolbox functionality. Follow these steps: 1. Open the part from the DVD that has the filename Chapter 15 – Tutorial Start.sldprt. This part originally came from Toolbox and already contains a few configurations. 2. Make an assembly that contains only this part. 3. Make the part into a Smart Component (Tools⇒Make Smart Component), and turn on the option to auto-size. 4. Select the small diameter of the part as the concentric Mate Reference. Figure 15.28 shows the selection. 5. Click the Configurator Table button, and fill in the table so that it looks like Figure 15.29. Some configurations are blank. This is because only the rows that have minimum and maximum values are used by the auto-size function. The rest are overlooked. 6. Close the configurator table, click the green check mark icon to exit the feature, and save the assembly. FIGURE 15.28 Selecting the concentric Mate Reference face 7. Exit the