Separate part from family table

[ptc-1801512]

Is there a way to move an instance from a family table to be a stand alone part. I know I can do a "save as" on an instance, but then I have to manually fix all the assemblies when that part is used. I want to know if there is a way to do it and have the assembly still work without having to do anything to them.

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[pwyndham]

Not that I know of. A family table is just a list of parameters that get applied to the part to modify it. There is not a way to separate them. Intralink 3.4 makes it look like you can but, there is no function available to make the individual files stand alone.

I think the only way to do it would be to save as. Make sure all the default values for the part match the family instance you want. Delete all the family tables from the new part. Delete that instance from the old part. Finally rename the new part with the old instance name. While doing this you should not have the assemblies in session, so ProE does not try to update the assemblies. This might take some work if you are using a PDM system.

Hope that helps.

[saw]

Sure there is!

You must have the instance and generic in session. Once the are both open, then go to the family table manager in the generic and remove the instance from the rows and close the dialog. Save the generic, then save the instance as a stand alone part. I can possibly provide more detail later if needed. Let me know.

saw

[pwyndham]

Oh, yea that simplifies what I was thinking a bunch.

[JonathanHodgson]

<minor hijack>

OK, so: is there a way to do the reverse, and have assemblies seamlessly sort themselves out?

We have a bunch of 'standards' (circlips, O-rings etc) modelled as individual parts - really it would make more sense to make them family tables. Unfortunately, if you have an assembly with part 12345 assembled, and you delete 12345.prt but create 12345 as an instance of circlips.prt, the assembly can no longer find it. The only solutions we know of involve finding every assembly that uses any given part, and opening and re-saving each one.

I recently thought I'd found a way to make it work, but I was wrong.

On a slightly deeper level, can anyone explain how Pro/E looks for and finds instances within family tabled .prt files?

(WF4, with no PDM system.)

</hijack>