As cast and finish machined parts

[ptc-1701983]

This is the first time I have had such a dilemma because we have very few parts like this. I am working on a gear housing to be made from a casting. As far as I see there are a few ways to 'store' this on our file system. Which way is best: A, Separate .prt files. One for cast state and one for finished machined. B, Family table with an instance 'As cast' and 'Finish machined' C, Representations. I think C is the best although I'm not as sure about the method for creating such. Anyone with experience who can confirm this for me? TIA, Richard.
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[ReinhardN]

D, if you have AAX, you can use the inheritance feature else F, assemble your cast part into a new assembly and do your machining with asembly cuts. Your BOM will then show the casting and the machined assembly.

[ptc-1701983]

I don't think we have AAX so D is possibly out. I have the ability to publish and insert geometry is this similar to inheritance? Your F sounds like a good option. My machined part will then be an assembly but I can't see a problem with that. Thanks P.S. What happened to option E?

[ReinhardN]

Richard, Publish/Copy Geom need AAX, so you may have it. Search in assembly help for merge/inheritance. The downside is that the casting will not appear in your BOM. PS. too quick counting the options.

[ZetianWang]

Use inheritance feature is the best of practice, otherwise assembly cut could be your second choice.

[BalachanderVenu]

Inheritance feature will be the best one since it will maintian the parent child relation with the Cast model.

[ptc-1701983]

Inheritance feature works a treat. Thanks.

[DELETEME]

I have to disagree with the inheritance method. A family table of cast and finished-machined housings will give you much greater flexibility, you will not need the advanced modeling extenstion, and best of all, there are no external references. Suppose you have a cast housing which has one machining configuration. Then there is a variation of that machining where you add another set of features, so you use an inheritance of an inheritance. You want to do another derivitive of the second one with more machining....but realize you can't because there is a limit of 3 (I believe...I've run into it) levels. Now you're screwed. with instances, just turn on and off features as you please, but just make sure they're not dependent on the previous solid feature. For things like this, I'll build a "skeleton" of datum curves within the generic, and use those references ONLY for the features. good luck!