Create a BOM index between Simplified reps

[cschmid]

Hello,

My company is trying to create drawings that are easier for our assembly line to understand.  This means creating a drawing more like a step by step instructions.  This means breaking up the complicated assembly into separate stages and we are doing this by creating simplified reps for each stage of assembly.  However, we need an easy way to assign BOM balloons to each of the simplified rep views.  Currently we assign a separate BOM table to each view and fix the index numbers to the same index number in the master rep BOM.  This is very time consuming and there is a risk of mistakes.

I had two ideas as a solution, but I cannot get either to work.

Idea 1:  Create BOM table with multiple &rpt.qty columns with each column assigned to a different stage.  This works well because it shows all of the stages and the quantity of pieces at each, however, we cannot attach BOM balloons to any views because of the following error: "BOM Balloons are not supported for regions with multiple models."

Idea 2: Create a component parameter for each component in the assembly and call out this parameter in a custom balloon in each of the simp rep boms.  I have been able to do this, but it seems very time consuming still because I have to individually create the parameter with each component.  Is there a way that I can create a component parameter for all of my components and the then edit the parameter in the model tree.

Can someone help me find a work around?

[Pettersson]

It's true that they can behave strangely sometimes. There are some bugs in it, but most of the time I find them reasonably easy to work with.

The datum planes thing has three possible origins I can think of:

1. Your datum planes aren't on a layer. Many companies have "smart layers" that automatically collect all datum planes, but it's not done by default in Creo, so if you don't have a layer that automatically collects all datum planes, hiding all layers aren't going to hide all planes. I've seen companies that have a layer for the base datum planes, but not for planes created later, for example.
2. If you're on Creo 3 or earlier, the "set datums" planes that are used as GD&T references are famously impossible to hide. It can be done, but it's really tricky. Can't remember the procedure now.
3. If you're on Creo 5+, you might have saved the layer status with some datums in the "shown items" layer, which will override any hidden layers.

Also, remember that you have to do a "save status" after changing layer status for it to stick. Otherwise, your changes will revert once you clear the file from memory.

For drawing views, there are some options that could interfere. You might want to check the detail option ignore_model_layer_status. that can cause the drawing to not care about layer status of the model, forcing you to set the layer status in the drawing.