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How to Add Custom Lengths to a SolidWorks BOM {Two-Minute Tut!}

by Josh on April 30, 2009 · Comments

Shhhh, in all actuality, this will not only show you how to add custom lengths to a Bill of material (BOM), but will allow you to harness the almighty power of custom properties in SolidWorks. It’s quick, it’s easy and it’s this week’s two-minute Tut.

Often, the shop or purchase department need a little extra info to manufacture or order the part. Looking through a bunch of drawing sheets to find it is grueling, but having it in the BOM makes it very clear.

Oh, and one added benefit? You may have a blast creating a bunch of drawing views to dimension one little length. This, however, can save you time, pages and dealing with large drawings by moving the info to the BOM. Let’s do this.


Here are the steps:

  1. Create a Design Table
  2. Add the configurations and length property to the design table
  3. Start a drawing
  4. Add a column for the length property

Now let’s lay it out:

  1. Create a Design Table
    Select, Insert, Table, Design Table. Leave it on Auto Create and select the dimension defining the length when the dimension box pops up.
  2. Add the configurations and length property to the design table
    Add some configuration and the $PRP@LENGTH property, as shown below.
  3. Insert a BOM
    In the part (or drawing), insert a BOM. Insert, Table, Bill of Material. Click OK (the green check.)
  4. Add a column for the length property
    Right click on the BOM and select Insert, Column… in the selection box that pops up. select the LENGTH property from the pull-down.

That is it! If you change the length for that configuration or add other configurations, the column will update. You can do this for any type of property you need to add to a Bill of Material. Some examples?

  • Thickness
  • Area
  • Notes
  • Build Sequence
  • Made from
  • Cage Codes
  • Serial Numbers
  • Reference Drawing
  • Color

Really, it could be anything.

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Comments

Tagged as: 2minutetut, bill of materials, bom, drawing creation, SolidWorks Tutorials

  • Matt
    Josh,

    Other than manually, is it possible to add a custom *ROW* to the BOM to reference something that changes in different configurations of an assembly? For example, I have an assembly that has an area that gets laser marked with a catalog number based on configurations of things in it. I can set up the assembly configurations to have this number as a configuration-specific custom property within the assembly. However, I would want it to show up at the end of the QTY. column for that configuration (as it is dependent on data that's in an assembly configuration).

    If not, is there a way to achieve this with a design table?

    Thanks,
    Matt
  • Mudslung
    Wow, You've got Al Whatmough commenting here! He's a celebrity... always like his ability to "Simplify" a Parametric operation into "Lay-man's" terms.

    Glad I stopped by, haven't been here in a while.

    Mudslung Studios
  • aWhatmough
    Well... yesterday I couldn't spell designer and today I R one But really.. thank you for the VERY humbling comment. BTW... I have the utmost respect for Josh's ability to add a brilliant amount of sarcasm to an otherwise humorless topic. Cheers,

    AL
  • Mudslung
    Hay Al,

    It all comes together to make a very cool site to explore. It's an honor to belong to a community of this calibur...
    Going to a seminar tomorrow PM, on Design Consultation (Thru local VAR).Will come back here and drop any good info on the topic.

    I REALLY want to get my name out there on a consumer product line!

    Thanks,

    Pat
    Mudslung Studios
  • Jerry
    We use linked custom properties extensively and love it. However, we've found that if you have multiple configurations of the same part and link a length value to a dimension the BOM will port in the last saved value instead of the configuration value. At least that's how it was a couple of years ago.
  • yeah, i recall that, but this method uses a custom property to reference the dim and I haven't had problems with this.
  • aWhatmough
    now that you have excel open... reformat column A to be "general" instead of "Test" Then insert this formal

    =B3&" x "&B3&" X "C3&" Long"

    Presto... now your configuration name describes the part :-)

    Cheers,

    AL
  • Right on Al! you can also through in a

    &" Inches" or &" mm"

    Usually, I'll add some extra columns outside the design table to define certain constants and then pull those into the description or custom property with a formula. dang, helps to know excel stuff to use get the most out of design table and bom's!
  • aWhatmough
    When you said "outside" of the design table I think we need to point out how one puts something "outside" of the design table. It is simple... but I am sure a lot of people don't know how.

    All you have to do is insert a blank column o r blank row. And everything to the right of it... or below it can be used strictly for calcs... SolidWorks won't look at it. (This can be VERY VERY handy)
  • great, given away all the secrets ;) good point Al - in the column you don't even need a blank one in between, just leave the Property cell blank.
  • Kyle
    Set Cell C3 to =B3 and copy down for all configs. That way the BOM auto-updates if you change D1@Base-Extrude-Thin...

    but only if you open and close the Design Table- Any one have a macro for reloading the design table on rebuild?
  • Right on Kyle. I should have mentioned that. Using formulas with design tables can help IMMENSELY. Thanks!
  • People need to get hooked on configurations. I recently consolidated a huge set of similar products and parts into configurations. The benefit of experimenting with configurations is unbelievable. SolidWorks will even generate a huge BOM matrix to display all the configurations at once (mind explodes).
  • YES! That's definitely something SW has over other programs. Can't believe how useful configs have proven to be over the years.

    2008 brought some welcome improvements in working with configs, too.
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