Co-mingled operations grouping options for posting part families.

[huskermcdoogle]

Folks,

So we make family parts that may share many operations from one part to another.  Usually 4 different configs of a given family, not a huge deal, but still pretty tedious when making changes.

I have done it a few different ways, but basically what I normally end up doing is doing the first one, then templating the file and overlay the other geometry and make changes and have a new file for each part.  This has been creating more work than necessary when I end up having to make process changes to fix chipping issues or in general cycle time improvements.

I have been toying with the idea of putting everything in one file and having all of the ops lumped together for each tool, ghosting the different versions, and unghosting the ops that I want to post.

What would be nice is the ability to create a posting group id or something similar that gives you the ability to assign an group identifier or mask to a group of ops.  So you can quickly, easily, and accurately select a group of ops co-mingled with others and enable posting for that "configuration".  Similar to using suppressing features with configurations in solid-works.

I think this would be hugely useful in many different ways, or maybe this can be done already and I am missing it...

Regards,

Husker

 

[crazy^millman]

Might think about getting Solidworks and using Mastercam in there. That way you can use the abilities it in to control what you are looking for. In Mastercam lumping in one file and making it to large will be a roll of the dice.

[huskermcdoogle]

46 minutes ago, C^Millman said:

Might think about getting Solidworks and using Mastercam in there. That way you can use the abilities it in to control what you are looking for. In Mastercam lumping in one file and making it to large will be a roll of the dice.

I've thought about that route, but in reality, I don't have good solids for the majority of our stuff, not to say I couldn't do that, but they are all organic shapes and nothing is cut and dry from a model datum perspective.  I feel I would have to figure out a different way of standing on my head to use MC4SW to make these.  Maybe I am missing something on how MC4SW is different.  Differences can be mirrored, offset, diffrent size.  But in almost all cases, there are sections where a slightly different processing approach may be required.  Picking new geo, just doesn't cut it in these situations.

It can get pretty cumbersome.

As far as file size, if I lump everything together, after a few revs, and everything hanging out in one file, they are typically no larger than 100mb.  Stability can be an issue, but usually isn't any worse than stripped down.