Replace by assembly that contains part being replaced

[Chris3]

There are times when I have a component in an assembly and I realize that component should have been an assembly instead. This most often happens when I need to add pins to the part or something small like that. Starting with Wildfire 5 there was an enhancement made so that if a part is duplicated it could be replaced using the unrelated component and evaluation rules.

I would suggest that these rules be updated to look for a component within an assembly. If the component being replaced exists within the assembly that you are replacing the component with, the entity IDs should be able to be auto paired.

Said another way:

Item to be replaced: Component_A.prt

Item replacing it: SubAssembly_B.asm

If assembly contains component A:

SubAssembly_B.asm

     -Component_A.prt

     -Component_C.prt

Then auto pair / update the entity IDs.

[RaphaelCNascime]

This is an interesting request and I think it wouldn't be all that complicated to do. I'm curious if there are others in the community who would also like to see this? So far only 5 votes...

On a related note, if we decided to do something like this in assembly mode, we could also consider doing this in drawings. I wonder if we also added this same capability to drawings how many people would like to use it?

The common use case I've heard many times is the case where a sheetmetal part is detailed by itself on a drawing and then later it needs to have some PEM nuts added - which means that part should really now be an assembly and it's not possible to change the model of the drawing to an assembly containing the part and not lose all the detailing.

My one concern here would be potential abuse of this feature by replacing a single piece part with a huge assembly that somewhere in its structure contains the part being replaced.

Anyway, I'm interested in any comments...

[rreifsnyder]

To a large extent this already exists. Perhaps it could use some tweaking but if you Replace the Component_A.prt and select Unrelated Component you can choose the SubAssembly_B.asm then select the "Edit Ref Table" button directly beneath the Unrelated Component button. You can then select the Evaluate button in the new Reference Pairing Table and it SHOULD pick up and auto pair any references for assembling Component_A.prt but ALSO anything that was later assembled TO Component_A.prt.

[ArnaudVandeVeer]

This is under consideration (together with Replace by Copy).

[S_Edgenear]

This would solve the problem that Creo has in regards to NX for instance, where any PRT file in NX can start as a simple part, (roughly a skeleton) but as the part keeps being developed in a multibody approach, some of the bodies could be assigned to one part, other bodies to other part, and converting a PRT file to an assembly (even though the file extension is kept the same. In Creo we have always the distincion of a simple part as a PRT file, and an assembly as ASM file. This works well for BOTTOM-UP design, but is a nuisance for a TOP-DOWN design, or hybrid design approaches. To speed up conceptual design in Creo, this distincion between parts and asseblies would better be blurred, even if keeping both file extensions, but at least simplifying the process of converting a simple part to an assembly, as in this request, and also in making it easier to extract the multiple bodies inside a skeleton part to one or several assemblies. In this latter case, this extraction should be a feature inside the skeleton part, to be able to be redefined and bodies excluded or added later to update the corresponding sub-assemblies. Also, the mirror sub-assembly should have this approach, instead of a one time command selection calling the GUI to mirror a sub-assembly, which leaves the mirrored sub-assembly not updated if later are added new components, I propose that the "Mirror Sub-Assembly" should be an assembly feature to be able to keep the mirrored su-assembly in-synch (as an option).

[Chris3]

According to the article below this has been delivered in Creo 9.0. Can't wait to try it out.

https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article/CS363490?source=subscription 

[ArnaudVandeVeer]

yes that is correct!

this is in Creo 9.0