BOM items arranged by subassemblies?

RSW

When properly done the BOM works quite well, though custom parameters assigned to parts may not always show up. It compiles a list of all items and sorts it nicely per length etc. but this is for all objects within the final assembly

Is it possible to have the BOM list the items grouped by subassembly?
I haven't been able to find it yet.

E.g. it would look like this:
Assembly items (not within subassemblies)
Subassembly 1 items
Subassembly 2 items
Subsubassembly 2 items
Subassembly 3 items

etc.

I realise you can achieve something similar by creating BOM's in each subassembly drawing and then combine the tables in Excel and paste that back in the final assembly layout but it would be quite useful if it could be done in the final assembly so that the list is generated in one go so that whenever there are updates you don't have to redo the compiling of individual BOM's into a single BOM after every update.

Roy Klein Gebbinck

This might be difficult to implement:
What should happen if 'Subassembly 2' occurs twice in the main assembly?
What if 'Subsubassembly 2' is also used by 'Subassembly 3'?

RSW

If 'Subassembly 2' is used twice (as main level subassembly) then in the BOM it will have 2 a quantity number and the constituting parts will be listed beneath it (preferably indented).

If 'Subassembly 2' is part of 'Subassembly 3' then it should be listed under 'Subassembly 3' (again preferably indented) and showing its constituting parts underneath it as described above. A subassembly that is used within another subassembly should be listed hierarchically under the parent subassembly and not listed as part of another instance of that subassembly higher up in the hierarchy.

That way it should to some extent resemble the structure of the overall assembly and one should be able to see the constituting part/assemblies and have an idea of how it is constructed.

E.g
ITEM Quantity
Main assembly part 1
Subassembly 1 (SA1) 1
SA1 part 1 3
SA1 part 2 etc. 2
Subassembly 2 (SA2) 2
SA1 part 1 (3 times) 6
SA1 part 2 etc. (2 times) 4
Subassembly 3 (SA3) 1
SA3 part 1 1
SA3 part 2 etc. 5
Subassembly 2 (SA2) 1
SA2 part 1 (3 times) 3
SA2 part 2 etc. (2 times) 2

Because the help file says that Bricscad can detect circular references to subassemblies and will prevent them from occurring I guess that creating such a hierarchical BOM should not be that difficult to implement as it looks like it is assigning unique ID's to each part/component anyway and should therefore be able to follow the hierarchy.

(comment, I spaced out the numbers for the quantity but it seems this is not maintained in the posted version, is this a bug or as designed?)

Roy Klein Gebbinck

OK, I understand. If this is a common approach (I do not know: I am not a 'mech head') it is perhaps already on the Bricsys ToDo list. But sending in a feature request may help.

Alternatively you could try to program something yourself using the BmLispGet Lisp function.

To publish the text with indentations:

1. Insert an empty line above and below the text block.
2. Select the text block.
3. Choose 'Code' from the first dropdown menu above the message field.

You cannot have a numbered list directly above a code block (as I just found out).

ITEM                                  Quantity
Main assembly part                    1
  Subassembly 1 (SA1)                 1
    SA1 part 1                        3
    SA1 part 2 etc.                   2
  Subassembly 2 (SA2)                 2
    SA2 part 1           (3 times)    6
    SA2 part 2 etc.      (2 times)    4
  Subassembly 3 (SA3)                 1
    SA3 part 1                        1
    SA3 part 2 etc.                   5
    Subassembly 2 (SA2)               1
      SA2 part 1         (3 times)    3
      SA2 part 2 etc.    (2 times)    2

RSW

@Roy Klein Gebbinck said:
OK, I understand. If this is a common approach (I do not know: I am not a 'mech head') it is perhaps already on the Bricsys ToDo list. But sending in a feature request may help.

[...]

1. Insert an empty line above and below the text block.
2. Select the text block.
3. Choose 'Code' from the first dropdown menu above the message field.

Sorry for the very late reply, I got too busy to visit forums for quite a while. A support request was made for the BOM question and I got informed it was on their roadmap and it looks like some/most or all of it has been implemented in V19 when glancing through the release notes.

Thanks for the tip to get indented text in forum messages.

Maxim_Shilovsky

There is the Hierarchical type of Bill of Materials included in BricsCAD V19 Mechanical. In this mode, all components grouped by subassembly, and each component has a serial number clearly indicated which subassembly it belongs too.
Hope this mode is close to what was requiested.

Best regards,
Maxim Shilovsky,
Bricsys Software Developer.

RSW

@Maxim_Shilovsky said:
There is the Hierarchical type of Bill of Materials included in BricsCAD V19 Mechanical. In this mode, all components grouped by subassembly, and each component has a serial number clearly indicated which subassembly it belongs too.
Hope this mode is close to what was requiested.

Best regards,
Maxim Shilovsky,
Bricsys Software Developer.

Hi Maxim,

Thanks for the reply, yes this is very close to what I was asking for.

I've tried to make it work but it seems it is not available right away when invoking the BoM command, I still get the V18 style BoM stuff. Could this be from copying the V18 settings when installing V19 and shouid I have gone with a clean start instead?

The one other thing that seems to be missing is maintaining the columns of an editied BoM as they are without automatically changing them back (i.e. removed columns containing parameters that should not be shown keep coming back upon each refresh of the assembly/BoM). Is there an option to have some permancence to the column setup so that any new/existing columns not shown have to be added manually in order to keep the BoM as intact as possible without having to redo it every time?

Maxim_Shilovsky

Could you please describe the action you performed to get the hierarchical BoM? I've just checked with the BricsCAD V19.1.06 (x64), and the hierarchical BoM was available. To add it, I launched BMBOM command and selected Hierarchical option. It shouldn't require a clean BricsCAD or other specific settings. (However, it does require a Mechanical license since V19). If this scenario doesn't work or doesn't produce the results you want, could you please submit a support request for this issue?
Currently, it is not possible to permanently remove columns from BoM tables. We are planning to improve BoM tables in BricsCAD V20, including fixing this problem. I apologize for inconvenience.
Best regards,
Maxim Shilovsky

RSW

Hi Maxim,

I found the hierarchical BoM> @Maxim_Shilovsky said:

Could you please describe the action you performed to get the hierarchical BoM? I've just checked with the BricsCAD V19.1.06 (x64), and the hierarchical BoM was available. To add it, I launched BMBOM command and selected Hierarchical option. It shouldn't require a clean BricsCAD or other specific settings. (However, it does require a Mechanical license since V19). If this scenario doesn't work or doesn't produce the results you want, could you please submit a support request for this issue?
Currently, it is not possible to permanently remove columns from BoM tables. We are planning to improve BoM tables in BricsCAD V20, including fixing this problem. I apologize for inconvenience.
Best regards,
Maxim Shilovsky

Hi Maxim,

The hierarchical BoM is working in V19, I might have been in V18 without noticing at the time as I need to open some old(er) drawings in V18 because V19 crashes upon opening those drawings. When V18 is used to open dwg files by dropping the dwg file on the shortcut icon it somehow becomes the default for opening new(er) drawings until V19 is used again.

Glad to hear that the columns thing is on the roadmap, I'll simply explode final BoM tables in the meantime to avoid automatic updates and redo them for updates once those updates are final too.

Torsten Moses

"because V19 crashes upon opening those drawings"

maybe, try V19 installation with the updated installer V19.1.06-2 ... the initial "06-1" installer had a defect, not properly registering the AEC Civil custom object enablers ...
in virtually all reported cases, using the updated installer V19.1.06-2 installer fixed those crashes.

many greetings !

RSW

@Torsten Moses said:
"because V19 crashes upon opening those drawings"

maybe, try V19 installation with the updated installer V19.1.06-2 ... the initial "06-1" installer had a defect, not properly registering the AEC Civil custom object enablers ...
in virtually all reported cases, using the updated installer V19.1.06-2 installer fixed those crashes.

many greetings !

The updated installed did solve the problem. Thanks for the suggestion. I read in the past that those minor build number changes were mostly cosmetic or language related fixex etc. so no real need to install them.