IFX Fasteners uses checked in Windchill version

[gpedros]

I made modifications to my fasteners, but when I assemble a fastener size that is checked into windchill it uses that version instead of new modified version. Is there anyway of preventing this?

Thanks

[OliverGräbner]

Hi,

I need some more information to answer this question.

• Do you use the IFX family-table mechanism or do you have single fastener models?
• Where are your modified fasteners are saved to?
  • Only to a local workspace
  • Only to a local drive
• Can IFX access your modified fasteners?
  • Try to open the fastener with the model name with 'Creo - File Open' dialog
  • are the modified files loaded?

Maybe some screenshots and a little bit more details would be helpful.

[gpedros]

Hi Oliver,

• I have single fastener models.
• Models are saved local on the C: Drive to a folder I've created. They are not in the default Creo created IFX folder.
• IFX seems to be able to access files because most fasteners work without issues except for the few sizes that are checked into Windchill.
• I'm not sure what you mean by, are the modified models loaded?

So, here's an example of an old model that has been uploaded into Windchill.

• The old models don't have threads the new models have the thread. Also, new models have new assembly constraints as you can see by the error message below. When I call this fastener up in Creo, it doesn't have the thread and in my workspace it shows that it is checked into Windchill.

This fastener should be a new object, but you can see it is not.

Old Fastener

New Fastener

[OliverGräbner]

If your new fastener is already in session, IFX should use the new one.

Otherwise I think the windchill fastener is prefered.

Why do you not upload your new fastener to Windchill?

[BenLoosli]

If you are running Creo connected to Windchill, the system will look for files to be added to the current assembly in the following order:

In Session

In your active workspace

In Windchill

It may also look in your working directory, but I would need to verify this

It will not look outside of Windchill, even if you have search paths set.

[gpedros]

I just want to understand this better. My generic fastener model is named shcs_inch.prt and I have a shcs_inch.dat with all my instances. When I use IFX to assemble an instance, is this a family table instance or a standalone part? I'm thinking it's a standalone part. Is this correct?

Also, what is required to be checked into Windchill, just the generic part? Then, do I set the path_abs_library option to my custom ifx folder that is stored locally?

[OliverGräbner]

Hi, this depends on your setup.

If the instance names in the first column from your 'shcs_inch.dat' already exist in Windchill or in session or on a search_path location, IFX will always try to reuse this existing fastener. Even if this instance name belongs to a family table file, this will be used.

Only if the fastener model cannot be found, IFX will try to create it on the fly.

In this case a *.prt with the same name as the *.dat file will be used as template.

In your case the part 'shcs_inch.prt'.

You can create all instances from your *.dat file in one step and upload them to Windchill.

This might be required if you have to change something in your existing fastener.

After changing the template part, you can run the IFX-Instance creator and upload the new single instance files to Windchill.

Find more details here:

To Create and Upload Fasteners to Windchill (ptc.com)

IFX Custom Libraries on Windchill Tutorial? - PTC Community