Family Table Drawings vs Snap Shots

[TMPENG]

Hello,

I am using Creo Elements Pro for machine design and I am wondering if anyone has any thoughts on pros/cons/best practices for what I am doing.

Oftentimes machinery will have actuators such as air cylinders, and sometimes there will be replaceable tooling, and many times both.

Up until now I have been handling models and drawings with family tables. In the case of an air cylinder, I create a generic model named the cylinder part number and constrain it in the "retract" position. Then I create a family table instance and constrain it in the "extend" position. When I want toggle my upper level assembly model between extend/retract, I simply replace the cylinder with the opposite family table instance. When I want to create drawings showing extend and retract, I create views from different assembly models containing the family table instances I want to show. This results in multiple BOMs that I have to work around (which I can). It's a bit of a pain, but it does work.

I recently started using some simple mechanism constraints. This allows me to drag the cylinder between two limits that I define. It allows me to see extend and retract, but still do so with no family table and a single BOM. It looks like you can create a snapshot of the cylinder orientation, then make the snapshot available to your drawing, and then you can show it as an option under exploded view. This seems to work well, but what are the disadvantages? Also, what if you need multiple positions as with an electric actuator. The drag snaps nicely with two positions.

Thoughts please,
Matt

Thanks,
Matt

 

[dr_gallup]

You can probably get what you want with simplified reps.

 

[TMPENG]

Could you give me a brief description as to how that might work? I have never used simplified reps.

Thanks.

 

[dr_gallup]

There are a lot of different types of simplified reps, the name is really poor as you can do a lot more than just simplify. For instance, you can replace a member with a family table instance. I think this would get around your multiple BOM problem.

 

[garymig]

I use snapshots alot to show an assembly in different positions. I've many different snapshots to show 6 or 7 positions, I can make drawings of them and dimension them and they can be updated as well.