Mechanical Browser Ensuring Names Match

Scott McKenzie

As some on here might know, I am building an entire rock drill using the mechanical tools, and while it is working, I am running into a couple of issues. 

One of the issues, which could make a mess down the road is the Name of my components, these names are, in my case, the part numbers, or assembly numbers, the name then corresponds, and is the sames as, the file which defines the part or assembly of parts; the description is populated in a spreadsheet, and I am not too bothered with having description in the model, if it changes, it just means more work to update it in two places.  Some more detail, I have created one main assembly - called "Drill 3", it then has a few sub assemblies, each named with an assembly number, inside each assembly is a stack of different parts and fasteners, and in a couple of cases additional assemblies, in total the Drill 3 model has 12143 components.

With the current setup of the mechanical browser, I can select an assembly in the Drill 3 model, and upon its details loading in the mechanical browser I am presented with a customizable Name option, a Component name and a description along with some other parameters that are not important to this issue.  If for some reason a mistake was made and the Component name is incorrect, i can open the component and change the name to match that of the file, then save and close, back in the Drill 3 model I run BMUPDATE, once this completes, the name given to the component previously is reflected in the Component Name box and NOT the Name.  This happens easily, for instance, if I take an existing component and reworking it so that it is no longer a direct replacement, it gets a new part number, sometimes I forget to change the Name in the mechanical browser before inserting that part into the Drill 3 model, and with that many components I might never see that it happened.  This is kind of a big deal, you can potentially have a big discrepancy between the actual part used in the model and that listed in the BOM.

There are two parts to this, I need to check that each part file's mechanical properties are such that the Name of the component matches the file name, less the .dwg, if not matching, use the name of the file.  Secondly, I need to go though each assembly and ensure that the part listed in the model browser matches the name and file name of each part.

Any suggestions?

Roy Klein Gebbinck

I think Bricsys has made the choice to not link the file name, the 'Component name' and the 'Name' given to the component insert (only in files without a mechanical structure will the file name be used as the 'Component name'). A lot can be said for this choice. My test shows that after _BMUPDATE the BOM displays the correct 'Component name'. So there is no risk of a mismatch there. But I understand how some renaming/renumbering feature for the insert names may be very useful.

Roy Klein Gebbinck

Oops. I realize now that my test was flawed. There is indeed a problem. A 'Component name' should only ever reference a unique file. In your scenario several components with the same 'Component name' can reference different files, which leads to a problem with the BOM. You should send in a Support Request as this is quite important.

Scott McKenzie

 Yup, exactly, thanks Roy; I will send a support request and report back here with the results...