Configuring Assemblies

I am not sure exactly when it became part of SolidWorks but if you were like me you may have missed it. I believe this is probably one of the best parts added to SolidWorks. One most useful tools for making new versions of assemblies and configurations of the parts that will make the new assemblies. A huge time saver and well... overlooked. It's has not appeared in the training material and is easily overlooked.

What is it you ask? Well I am talking about the configuration parent/child setting. Where is it? Well when you create a new assembly configuration, at the bottom of the properties list you will find a parent/child pull down menu. This menu works similar to the mirror component tool as the components that you wish to configure can be checked in the list to make new configurations in them as well as the assembly.

If we check a box in the list it will add a configuration to the part components named the same as the assembly configuration. It also will go and set all of those parts to the new configuration to be used in the new assembly configuration.

Now the one downside is that obviously the new part configurations will need to be named appropriately at the part level but at least it is created and set in the assembly.

So give it a try... Maybe it will be your new favorite tool.

John Van Engen

CATI Tech Support