DriveWorks Solo 22

How To: Maintain Rules For An Existing Model When It Becomes A Child Of A Parent Assembly

Introduction

DriveWorks supports the ability to have the same model captured with different rules applied. The ability to have a model captured outside of an assembly and have it replace a placeholder within another assembly is also supported. This helps to keep the file size of the master model to a minimum.

This article discusses using this approach when the model, with rules applied, becomes a child within a parent assembly.

How To Implement

This is done by inserting the original component into its new assembly and then capturing the new assembly and the instance of the original component within the assembly.

Capture the New Assembly

1. Open the project the new assembly is to be captured into from the DriveWorks tab of the SOLIDWORKS task pane. This should be the same project the original component has been captured into.
2. Insert the original component into the new assembly and save the assembly to the required location.
3. With the new assembly active in SOLIDWORKS capture this by clicking the helper link (Click here to capture the active model) in the DriveWorks tab of the SOLIDWORKS task pane. The captured assembly structure should look like the image below.
   Because the original component is being driven outside of the assembly it should not be captured as a child in the assembly, instead it will be captured as an instance.
   
4. Select the Instances button in the DriveWorks task pane and select the instance of the original component in the new assembly
5. Select the Captured Models tab to display a list of the models that have been captured in the current group. The list should look like the image below:
6. Open the Project Designer.
7. Select Model Rules from the task explorer
8. Click Add to add a new component and select the New Assembly from the list.
9. Ensure the original component appears higher up in the model list than the New Assembly so DriveWorks generates the original component before the assembly it will be replaced into.
10. Check the box next to the New Assembly to display the parameters to apply rules to.
11. Select the captured instance of the original component and click Build to build a rule for this instance
12. Select the components tab of the rule builder and double click the reference for the original component
13. Click Ok to apply the rule and close the rule builder.
    This rule will place the original component, driven according to the results of all the rules applied, into the new assembly.