Reference Designators

[Aaronm87]

I am looking for a way to give a part number a reference (A1, A2 etc..) so when I create a bill of materials I can create a new column and it will put the "Find no." as well as the reference ID, which is used in the family trees. Is there a way to assign a part or assembly with an addition parameter that can be called out into a table?

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[KshetrabasiMaha]

Hi

I could not clearly understand what u need.

but what I understood U want

either

1. extract last two digits of part no and use it in the BOM

eg- If part no is 232323A1 then extract A1 from the part number and use this parameter later

or

2.Join a parameter to part number and creat a new parameter

eg- Part no is 232323 and ref is A1

Final Part no is 232323A1

In Case of FIRST CASE use the following relation may help you

count=string_length(rel_model_name)

ref=extract(rel_model_name,count-1,2)

THIS RELATION WILL CREAT A NEW PARAMETER NAMED REF HAVING VALUE OF THE LAST TWO DIGITS

In Case of SECOND CASE use the following relation may help you

final_part_no=rel_model_name+ref

you need to creat a additional parameter ref and give the values A1

and final_part_no is a new parameter that will be created giving a combined name

You can use these parameters later

If your problem is something else then clarify with a proper example

[Aaronm87]

That is on the right track with case 1. However, because of the way we name files at my company we cannot change the naming convention. Is there a way to store the information as a property of the model and call to it for the BOM?

[KshetrabasiMaha]

Hi

Can you give an example of your part number and what you want in your bom ?

[Aaronm87]

So lets say the part number is ASSY-00005-001. On the family tree this is referenced as A1. I want my BOM to appear like this

FIND QTY REF PART NO DESCRIPTION

1 1 A1 ASSY-00005-001 Assembly

[KshetrabasiMaha]

Hi Aaron

I would suggest you to add a parameter REF to your assembly or part template and fill the required values A1 or A2 as per your requirement

And then use this parameter REF in the assembly BOM

But If there is any specific relation between your part no and ref no

Like-ASSY-00005-001 should have Reference value-A1

and ASSY-00005-002 should have Reference value-A2

then Use a relation to eastablish a relation between part no to ref parameter as follows

count=string_length(rel_model_name)

ref1=extract(rel_model_name,count,1)

ref="A"+ref

And then use this parameter REF in the assembly BOM

hope this will resolve your problem

[BrianMartin]

Hi Aaron...

Mr. Manhanta's suggestion to simply add a parameter to each part and assembly will certainly work. If you add a string parameter called "REF" to each part/assembly, you can show this as a find number in your BOM. You will need to add the proper parameter to your bill of material to retrieve this parameter from each component. There are a few that will work but I'd suggest &asm.mbr.REF (if your parameter name is "REF").

However, there are some caveats to this approach.

Let's say you have a single common part like a caster wheel and you want to use this in TWO different assemblies. Let's say that in one assembly, you want the caster "find number" to be "6"... but in the other assembly you want it to be "4". In this case, the parameter technique will cause problems. You can't assign the same "REF" parameter to both 6 AND 4 unless you use some special tricks.

In this case, you can either use a TABLE RELATION to display either a 4 or 6 in the BOM. This is far too complex to cover in a single email. It's not fun. The other way to achieve the same effect is to make the caster a FLEXIBLE component and vary the REF parameter such that it equals either 6 or 4 depending on which assembly it belongs to.

I can think of one or two other ways to achieve the effect you're after. None of them are very clean if you need to use the same component in multiple assemblies.

I'll toss out one more idea... perhaps the BEST way to address your problem is to use a COMMENT field in your Bill of Materials. This will allow you to add the REF text directly in the drawing WITHOUT MODIFYING your parts and assemblies. This technique involves adding no parameters at all. You simply create an empty column in your table where the REF data should appear. Go to Table>Repeat Region>Comment and select the bottom cell of your repeat region. There must be NO text at all in this column for this to work (except for the header that reads "REF").

Once the column has been designated as a comment column, you can click any of the cells in the column and add text. The great thing is that comments "stick" to whatever component they've been assigned to. If you enter the text "A1" next to find number "6" and later on you re-sort the BOM so that find number 6 becomes find number 12, the "A1" will move to find number 12, too.

Sometimes it's a bit too hard to answer these questions in email. I could demonstrate with a video and cover the same ground MUCH quicker. If this makes no sense, let me know and I'll post a video of the technique.

Thanks and sorry for the long reply!!

-Brian

[Aaronm87]

Now that I have some time to focus on this again...Let's see if I can explain myself better.

So any part that has a reference designator will no longer have a numerical find number as seen in the table below

Find	Description
A1	Part 1
A2	Part 2
A3	Part 3
1	Part 4
2	Part 5

I know I could manually label each part with the designators and fill it out that way. Is there a way to tell ProE that if I have a part with Reference X in the properties to neglect the numerical find number? Thus, ProE will create the entire parts list instead of having to manually create the parts lists which is very time consuming when you have large assemblies. Can it be programmed at all? (Like excel's macros)

[BrianMartin]

Hi Aaron...

In short... no. You cannot have Pro/E ignore the numeric item numbers. It's one of those absolutes when using the repeat region BOMs. You have to have &rpt.index to make it work... and you cannot override the index with your own variables.

Of course... there are some tricks you could use to MIMIC overriding the value. In a relation you could theoretically capture the index number of each item and set it equal to a variable "X". Next, you could check to see if each item has a special reference designator parameter set. If so, then change "X" to be the value of the special reference designator. Otherwise, leave "X" alone.

This will give you a variable "X" that contains either the default index number from Pro/E or your special reference designator. You can then show the variable "X" in your table.

Ahh... but here's the wrinkle... you MUST also include the actual index number in the table, too. Sometimes just having the index variable in the relations in enough to satisfy this requirement. Other times you actually need to have a column with that variable in it. If the relations aren't enough... you can make a separate column with &rpt.index in it. Simply make the column only .10 wide.... and then make the text in that column black... so it appears to be invisible. Blank out the line separating the column so it also disappears.

I know this explanation isn't very clear. You really need pictures to see what I'm saying. I'll toss out a repeat region relation to get you started and let you play with it. If you can't figure out how to make it work, write back. I've found myself tremendously backed up with work lately otherwise I'd take the time to lay it all out for you now.

First, make sure each part needing a special reference designator has the parameter REF defined. Then, add this relation to the repeat region of your drawing...

myindex = rpt_index

if exists ("asm_mbr_ref")

myindex = asm_mbr_ref

endif

In your table, use the variable: &rpt.rel.myindex in place of the regular &rpt.index value.

If this works properly, any item with the Ref parameter defined will override the index value. If this doesn't work, add an extra column to your BOM with &rpt.index in it... but make the column very thin and make the text black so it appears invisible.

Let me know your results.

Thanks!

-Brian

[Aaronm87]

It looks like we might be getting somewhere! The above doesn't seem to work, but I will play around with it more. Here is another alternative. Could create an alternative column that goes through and if a ref does not exist start counting so it could look like this.

A1

A2

1

A3

2

3

A4

A5

Also, is there any literature on the syntax for the relations?

[BrianMartin]

Hi Aaron...

I was able to get this to work... see below. The first column is &rpt.index and the second is &rpt.rel.myindex

I did have to go into the repeat region relations and select Local Parameters at the bottom of the relations window. Then I entered asm_mbr_ref as a new string parameter. Whenever you're introducing a new component parameter into your relations, you have to add the parameter manually to the local parameters BEFORE the relations will actually work correctly.

In the example below, only one of the items in my assembly had the Ref parameter... so only one line item shows up with the overridden reference designator.

To answer your last question... NO. There is literally NO WAY to keep a running count. You can't say... if the component has Ref then show it, otherwise display the next number in a series. Notice even below that I can show either the index number OR the reference designator. On line #3... I can't show "2" instead. I'm stuck with "3".

This has been a long-standing issue with repeat regions. They evaluate each component one at a time... but they have no "memory". There's no way to incorporate a counter or increment a variable. For example, you couldn't create a variable to keep track of how many "Ref" variables were found in the assembly. Without toolkit or advanced programming, it's just not possible. Below is about the best you can hope for.

Your next best bet is to use a comment column to handle the item/ref problem... this is about the only thing that will give you what you're after.

[BrianMartin]

Not sure the image came through... so here it is... from my previous reply

[Aaronm87]

Got it working, thank you for all of your help!

[BrianMartin]

My pleasure... glad to help!