Removing Reference Designators for mechanical parts without breaking the association

[ptc-4331756]

When a BOM is generated from a ProE model how do you prevent the part ID from being assigned to the reference designator? We want to leave the ref. designator blank for mechanical parts. When you delete the ref. designator the association is broken and the quantity defaults to 1.

This thread is inactive and closed by the PTC Community Management Team. If you would like to provide a reply and re-open this thread, please notify the moderator and reference the thread. You may also use "Start a topic" button to ask a new question. Please be sure to include what version of the PTC product you are using so another community member knowledgeable about your version may be able to assist.

[KshetrabasiMaha]

Hi

Please attach a screenshot for better understanding

Regards

K.Mahanta

[ptc-4331756]

To clarify...

We recently updated to PDMLink 10.0, and discovered a new "feature." When checking in a CAD assembly, it automatically populates the WTPart BOM's Reference Designator field with the Component ID from Creo/Pro if there is no Reference Designator defined in Creo/Pro.

This is a problem for us. Reference Designators are used to identify electronic part instances, and they are used in mechanical assemblies to identify CCAs, switches, cables, flex circuits, etc. So many of our assemblies have mixtures of Ref Designators and Find Numbers. This worked fine in v9.1, but v10 apparently doesn't allow the field to be blank.

PTC support calls this "intended functionality" and hasn't yet found a work-around. They say it was added to "support enterprise top down design"

[BrianMartin]

Hi Sibylle...

Unless you can set your start part/assembly such that they have a default reference designator of " " (a blank), PTC is going to have to solve this issue. I completely understand mixing electrical components and mechanical ones. There should be a mechanism for handling hybrid models like this. Or, at the very least, you should be able to delete the reference designator and maintain the BOM associations.

The only suggestion that comes to mind is this... add a column for Ref Des to your model tree. You can add this column and any electrical parts will show their reference designator right in the model tree. If you don't know how to do this, ask and I'll give better instructions. While it's true that Ref Des will automatically report if the item is a designated electrical component (as required for cabling), you MAY also be able to assign non-mechanical objects a reference designator. Maybe you could assign the find number as the mechanical reference designator?

To do this... find a mechanical item in your model tree. Make sure you have a Ref Des column showing in the tree. Double-click the left mouse button in the Ref Des column right next to the mechanical item. You should be prompted to type in a new reference designator for the mechanical item. Try entering a find number... or try entering a blank space. See if this doesn't allow you to manually set the reference designator. If so, then you can probably prevent PDMLink from auto-assigning the component ID. This might resolve the problem.

I'd be surprised if PTC hasn't already thought of this... but it's worth a shot. Let me know if this works... or if I am being unclear and you need additional instruction.

Thanks and good luck!

-Brian

[slapha]

So I was tracking this down and found case CS74375.

You can pre-define the reference designator by filling out the feature name for the component in the assembly. This also fills out the ECAD_REF_DES parameter automatically. If the model has a wtpart association and passes attributes this will fill out the ref des column in the wtpart BOM.

Still don't see a way to make it blank unless a space will do. I haven't tested that far. Probably can't use a - because that's the default value for defining range.