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Creating Family Table

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102 views2 pages

Creating Family Table

Uploaded by

mnrrbhat
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Creating family table is most effective when you need to create huge

numbers of similar parts. For example, you have to create a database of 100 different sizes of
bolts. By using family table, the parts can be standardize. Another benefit of family table is in
making of parts catalog; Family table file can be included easily in parts catalog.

Things to be known before creating family table: Before start creating family table, you have
to observe the part very carefully and note down the dimensions, which will vary for each of the
instances.

Three important terminologies of family table are: generic, instances and items. Generic is the
master part, which only needs to be modeled for creation of the family table. Instances, on the
other hand, are the parts, which created by pro engineer automatically as per the specified
modifications of generic part dimensions. In the bolt family table creation example, one bolt
need to be modeled in pro engineer first, this is called generic and after that by varying the
dimensions of it you will get different instances. Items are the parameters (dimensions, feature
etc.) by varying which different instances are generated from generic.

Each row in a family table represents an instance, where as each columns represents an item.

Name given to each instance of family table is not case sensitive.

Family table could be multi level as well. In multi level family table, you can create instances of
instance.

Creating family table: Model the generic part in pro engineer, save it and then click on

tools>family table, you will get a window like below:

Click on the add new instance icon, one more row of instance will be added to the family table
with a system generated name, you can change the name.

Now, click on the add new item icon to add the numbers of items to the family table, New item
fields will be appeared as*, put the desired values.

If you want an instance should not be modified, then select that instance and click on lock icon
of the family table.

Retrieving the instances created by family table: When you will try to open an instance, you
will see the name of the instances will not be available directly by file>open option. You have to
first double click on the generic part name and you will see the box containing all the instances
of the generic for your selection.

Note: Family table items are normally standard items and should be used directly to any
assembly without any modifications or operations, however if you perform any operations
to any of the instances and save it, then the operation will remain as a feature of that
instance only.

Creating model from an instance: If you want to convert an instance to a separate pro engineer
model then, you have to click file>save a copy and give a separate name to the model.

Assembly family table: You can create assembly family table similarly as part family table, but
some points need to be noted for assembly family table:

1. You can create an instance with or without including any numbers of components of the
generic assembly.
2. Even if you don’t include a component to a particular instance, but still it will be there in
the assembly for the other components, which had taken reference from it but the inactive
component will neither be visible to the instance nor will be considered for mass property
calculation of the instance.
3. You can also consider the dimensions given for assembling the components as well as
assembly level features as items for assembly family table.

Multi level family table: The family table created for the instances of any family table is called
multi level family table. The items of a multi level family should be different than what are
already selected for the main family table. For example, if you are creating a multi level family
table of a cylinder, then probably you could select diameter as an item for the main family table
and height as an item for the multi level family table of any of the instances.

Read more:
http://www.brighthub.com/engineering/mechanical/articles/24487.aspx#ixzz15cJc1xvC

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