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Youâ’ve been working on a 13,000 part mega-assembly with the most well thought out top-down assembly structure ever devised by man. The next morning, you gingerly sip your coffee as the model ooooopens, and then… something doesn’t look right. Suddenly, that pastry looses it’s sweetness as you come to grips that all your parts are… Out of Context?
It’s hard to figure out why or how this happened sometimes, but, never fear, there are ways to fix those out-of-context parts.
What’s Out-of-Context?
There’s this thing that happens when parts that are linked to assemblies become unlinked. You may hear something like, ‘That part had sketch relations driven by a top-down assembly, but now they’re out-of-context, so it’s not resolving correctly.‘ That is just fancy speak for… your parts lost a reference.
The Perfect Situation
I’m going to approach this problem from one angle that is a perfect situation for this tip and makes me look like I know everything about dealing with out-of-context stuff. This might not be the exact situation you have, but it’s quick and shows you an option for fixing your problem. Sally forth, or sumthin’.
Attention: the assembly has been renamed
The most common situation I see components go out of context is when the assembly they were created in has been renamed. If you rename an assembly that has parts built in the assembly you’ll get a very big message that say,‘There are parts that have features defined in the context of…if you select OK…’ you’re parts will be hosed.
Well, if this happens or you think it may have happened, here’s how to fix it.
- Open SolidWorks Explorer
Go to Tools, SolidWorks Explorer… and navigate to where your assembly is. - Rename the Assembly
Click the assembly and select the third circular icon over, SolidWorks Rename. You’ll see something like below. You may notice an absence of parts in the Update Where Used section. Rename the assembly to what it was named.Note: to find out what it was named you can edit an out-of-context assembly. You’ll get a pop-up that says, this part has featured defined in the context of another assembly [your_assy.sldasm]. That is what you rename it to.
- Rename one more time
If you need to change it back to what it was renamed to, just do the operation over again. Make sure the Update where used box is checked and you’ll notice this time, that there’s a nice group of parts that have found their way back home.
Other situations
This can come in handy for a number of situations
- Dissolving sub-assemblies
- Bringing in parts defined in another assembly
- Helping parts rebuild
- Correcting dangling relations in a part
I’m sure there are others. Have you used this before to fix problems?
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Congratualtions Josh-
Excellent!
You’re now an offical member of the SolidWorks Explorer Club! Please see your Den Mom for your patch.
Even more fun is this: slash and burn all references all the way to the sketch level. Too bad the “Cavity” external reference cannot be removed, same with some Sketch Planes created a dimensioned distance from the Face of an external reference.
Devon
Thanks Devon, I feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. I love breaking references on other peoples models. good training method that build endurance. break, redo, break, redo, FASTER!!
Another method is my “shock and awe” process. I take someone’s carefully crafted Part and Save As a dumb solid. “No more pesky External References now, Herman!”
“Oh Lily, darn, darn, darn!”
Devon
Don’t worry herman, external references are just too tempting for little Eddie.
I just try to avoid doing things in context at all. Just more stuff to get out of whack while I issue a multitude of 4 letter expletives while fixing it.
I have a pop up saying “this part has features defined in the context of another assy VX6_Board Assy_AC_eSATA.SADASM. you can edit the part, but cannot create any external reference to the components of correct assy”.
It doesn’t aloow me to do convert in order to edit the the sketch of a part. So i tried to rename the assy to
VX6_Board Assy_AC_eSATA_001.SLDASM (added _001)and checked “update where used” but the same message poped up again.
Can anyone give me an advise? Thanks in advance.
Margaret
Here is the way: go to the Tools-Opertions-System Opertions-External References, “allow multiple contexts for parts when editing in assembly”. and I would think I’ll setup this way normally operator.
Margaret