SolidWorks 2010 Bible

Part III: Working with Assemblies

FIGURE 16.12

External References dialog boxes

If you receive a multiple-context part from someone else, the best thing to do is to determine

whether you have all the files required to make it work. Right-click the external reference symbol

and select Edit In Context to determine whether SolidWorks can find the right files. Also looking

for an out-of-context symbol will tell you if any of the necessary files are not currently open.

Aside from doing some programming, the only way to find out whether a part was created as a

multiple-context part is to examine the External References list for each in-context feature. This

can be very time-consuming. Although multiple-context parts should be very rare, it is impossible

to determine ahead of time whether or not a part that you have received is a multiple-context part,

at least without programming. The one exception to this is when some features are in-context and

some are out-of-context.

In-context with configurations

On the surface, mixing in-context references with configurations sounds like it is combining two

powerful techniques that should offer you great control over models. Although this may sometimes

be true, I want to caution you about some of the effects that combining these two techniques may

cause. In particular, you should be careful about part configurations, particularly configurations of

the referenced part.

If you are using in-context relations to parts with configurations, then you may want to consider a

few things. First, look at the door-hinge part shown in Figure 16.13. At the top are three configu-

rations of one of the hinge plates. The second hinge plate is built in the context of the assembly so

that it will always match the first plate. At the bottom are the results of changing the first hinge-

plate part configuration in the assembly. This looks like an ideal situation because the second

hinge plate always changes to match the first hinge plate. What could be wrong with this?

The problem here is that you can only show the size of the second hinge plate that corresponds to

the configuration of the first plate that is active in the assembly. If you had two instances of the

hinge assembly in a top-level assembly, then you would be able to show only one size for the sec-

ond plate.