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Awww, look. That tiny assembly is so… tiny and cute. Makes you want to grab a million of ‘em and just give ‘em hugs.
Now, I know some of you aren’t that attached to your bracket or gasket assemblies, but you gotta admit there’s a special place in that documentation system for those little boogers. However, re-creating a lot of the same assemblies can turn that admiration into disgust real quick, unless you have a few tricks to lull them into submission.
Dealing with small assemblies is easy right? Why not talk about the large ones that seem so difficult? Well, sometimes you can get some perspective by scaling back a little and setting things up for the smaller situations.
- Make it an assembly
Every once in a while I’ll come across a part that is called out as an assembly. Great. After you verbally lash Mike for doing that, you go through the process of turning it into an assembly which isn’t so much a problem until you have to do a drawing. Even worse, in SolidWorks 2007 and previous, if you use the Replace command (right click on part in FeatureManager Tree), you can only replace a part with a part. Best to create it as an assembly to start off with, just in case you need to add some other parts. 
Template Your Assemblies
If you build a lot of the same bracket assembly for instance, you probably have drawings that look really similar or should. It’s fairly simple to copy and start from a previous drawing which I would recommend. But, if you have sets of assemblies that have a typical starting point it’s going to be quicker to make a ‘template’ of those. Create a common directory on your Network and then set it up in your Design Library on the SolidWorks Task Pane.- Use the same views
From working with people closely in a shop I don’t understand why two similar assemblies would have completely different views on the drawing. Most likely because two different people worked on them. I’m not just talking about the drawings either.Views set up in a model are different depending on how that person works. Set up your View Orientations and Annotation Views the same across similar assemblies. It’s a quick and easy way to make your drawings consistent. Now, if you have templates of these assemblies you don’t have to set up the same views each time. Give that guy a nickel.
These three things come in handy for those that create a lot of the same pieces but if you know you’re going to re-use something, why not set up a few rules to make it go fast impress the boss and get a fat bonus? What do you do?
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Can you elaborate a bit on the first one? I’m still not getting it.
As far as same views, that’s a good one. Also, try to model the components in the same orientations and reference points. That way if you have to replace the component with a different one, you will decrease or eliminate the amount of mates that you will have to fix. I try to model each component the way it is going to be oriented in the final product.
Also, for drawings, don’t forget to leverage the power of Configurations and Display States to eliminate the number of Drawings/Assemblies you need to manage.
Great, some more tips I wish my company had three years ago. I think the most I’ve done is copy stuff from one sheet to another and change configurations.
Wow Bruce. I missed this comment. sorry.
Occasionally, I’ll come across parts that are called out as assemblies. I see it happen with some beginners or done as a shortcut to avoid having to create an assembly.
For example, in my line of work, rivet are commonly not shown, so I may see a bracket that is called BRACKET ASSY, but it’s a part. If another bracket or some hardware needs to be added to this “assembly” it takes a bit longer to update and becomes a pain if it’s been used in a lot of assemblies.
Does that make more sense?