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spetty1-Visitor
1-Visitor
June 9, 2017
Question

Units set to default (inches) instead of metric...

  • June 9, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 3809 views

Now, I already know the answer to this, but it isn't making me smile, so I'll check to see if anyone has found a way around it.

It can't just be me, surely..!

It's not really been a problem so far as there's only me that uses Creo at my present company, but more and more I'm having to send IGES / STEP files to suppliers and I need to remember to scale them before sending them out.

I keep having visions of convoys of trucks showing up at work with castings on the back 25.4 times too big and then waking up in cold sweats..!!!

I (rashly) made the decision about 10 years ago to use a library of fasteners I had 'acquired' which were in the wrong units, along with some useful assemblies done by a colleague.

It saved me a lot of messing about and work at the time... and it has grown from there.

Fast forward to today and I now have hundreds, if not thousands of parts, assemblies and drawings which are still in the wrong units.

I know I can convert the parts individually, but the problems I would then have with assemblies and the attached drawings not regenerating properly has stopped me doing it.

I assume that this post may only serve as an example to others to not cut corners and make sure the units are correct before beginning, but is there some magic macro or program out there which can stop my nightmares..? Please someone say YES..!

Yours,

Unhappy Steve

1 reply

S
23-Emerald III
StephenW23-Emerald III
23-Emerald III
June 9, 2017

Yikes!!! And I've experienced the 25.4 scale factor part problem but luckily it was in the opposite direction. The manufacturing engineer helping me on a quick build project took my dxf and sent a quick program to the laser and cut my part, about 4 foot long (1219.2mm for you metric folks), seems like it was 3/16 inch (4.76mm) thick steel plate. It was supposed to be 4 parts. They stopped after one was cut 25.4 times too small.  We all got a good laugh and learned a lesson about being in a hurry and luckily it didn't cost us anything but a little time.

On some release of Creo fairly recently, PTC added the "include sub-models" option when you change the units on an assembly. You may want to look in to that option. And do some testing. It's definitely not a cure for your problem but you may be able to correct a bunch of models relatively quickly (depending on your assemblies, of course). Drawings, well, I don't think there is a real fix, other than a ton of work.

Units change is under FILE - PREPARE - MODEL PROPERTIES - units (CHANGE)

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