Re: Merging very complex Pro/E assembly into one part

From: Michael Wilson (art2part@unixg.ubc.ca)
Date: Thu Dec 11 1997 - 17:31:28 EET


Hi Steve,

I have had quite a bit of experience with radial patterns, such as fans,
impellers, chain sprockets and gears. I might suggest that we have had most
success making a single part of all the radial features. I do that by
drawing one "blade" and grouping all the features of the "blade" and then
creating a pattern of the group in a single part file. You can try merging
that part file with one or two instances in your assembly. After the
merging is complete increase the number of instance in the pattern in the
part file. We have also been able to save the storage space by reducing the
number of instances in the pattern to one prior to saving.
I would also suggest to place the following line in your config.pro
"Retain_pattern_definition Yes" this will allow you to delete the pattern
without deleting the patterned feature.

If I can help further let me know, bye for now. Michael
At 07:41 AM 12/11/97 -0600, you wrote:
>Hello all -
>
>We have a very complex assembly in Pro. You can think of it as a fan with
>about 80 curved, lofted blades. Each blade has, as its root, a barb-like
>affair which slides (apparently line-to-line) into the hub. Similar
>attachment to an external ring.
>
>So, we have about 100 solids which, when made into a single STL file of
>acceptable quality gives us a 20 Mb file. The size of the file shouldn't
>really be a problem - we've done big files before. However, this beast
>took 45 hours to slice on a 250 MHz Indigo2 with 128 Mb of RAM. Okay, we
>ate that. Now, however, we are getting an error on our SLA350 which,
>according to 3D Systems, means that features are too close together for the
>software to distinguish between them.
>
>We theorized that, as we are drawing shells in the .STL file which are
>immediately next to each other, if we could turn the 100 solids into one
>solid, we could eliminate this problem. I haven't got a huge amount of
>experience in Pro Assembly, but I found how I could merge parts, thinking
>this would produce the single-solid part I desire. Unfortunately, it
>appears that, even though I can pick all of the blades and tell it to merge
>them to the hub as the reference part, Pro does each merge separately,
>stopping and asking us for a "done" before it goes on to the next merge.
>
>The question: is there a way to tell Pro to merge all of the solids in an
>assembly into one part, in one single step?
>
>Thanks in advance,
>
>
>
>\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
> \_ Steve Stewart Phone: 303-252-0212 \_
> \_ protogenic, inc. FAX: 303-252-0223 \_
> \_ 1490 w. 121 ave., suite 101 WebSite:www.protogenic.com \_
> \_ westminster, co 80234 e-mail:steve@protogenic.com \_
> \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
>
>
>
>
Michael Wilson, Project Manager RMM
Aurora Search Inc.
art2part@unixg.ubc.ca
http://www.interchg.ubc.ca/art2part
fax/tel 604-608-2943



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