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This manual was written in HTML and made available through the Engineering Division's web server.
Family of Parts is a new feature of CADDS5. It allows a designer to create a large group of related parts more easily. The designer creates one parametric model, and a plain text file containing information about all of the parts in the family. CADDS then uses this model and text file to create the other parts in the family. This can be used, for example, to create a library of standard parts that can be used by everybody on the system.
This is a more advanced library. It doesn't require as much work on the part of the designer to get the library going. It also used less disk space. Since CADDS can generate any of the parts in the library on demand, parts can be created when necessary, and then deleted when they're not needed anymore. Also, since we've automated the process, you can create all of these parts without ever entering CADDS.
Family of Parts is a parametrics product. Anyone using CADDS Parametrics can use the Family of Parts software. The parts it produces are also parametric parts. These can also be included in CAMU assemblies.
Unfortunately, the Family of Parts software only works in parametric mode. You can, however, use the parts that have been generated. See the section below on how to modify parts.
If, for example, you are creating an assembly that contains parts that can be found in the Family of Parts library, you don't need to create them yourself. You just add them to your assembly directly from the library. This way there is less work for you because you don't have to create the parts, and also because there are fewer parts for you to keep track of. If one of the library parts is deleted because it hasn't been used in a while, you just regenerate it. If there are a large number of such parts, the amount of time and effort you save will be substantial.
Having this library of parts will also cut down on the number of parts that have been created by many different designers for many different projects, and exist many times all over the parts disks. This reduction in parts will cut down on the amount of disk space needed, and the amount of time it takes to find parts on the system. These parts won't have to be offloaded to tape, and restored later on when they're suddenly needed again. All of the information needed to create these parts remain on disk.
The first step is to find out if there is a family for the part you are looking for. Once you've found the proper family, you need to search it for the specific part you need. Next, you check to see if this part already exists on the system. If it doesn't, you generate it. Finally, you use this part as you would any other part on the system.
There is, however, one restriction. These parts are read-only. This is because multiple people are going to be using the parts, and if someone changes one of them, that is going to cause problems in other models. Also, since these are generated parts, any changes you make will be lost if the part is regenerated.
Actually, it isn't as difficult as it sounds. We've written several pieces of software to make this process a lot easier.
The first method of finding parts will probably look familiar to you. The program /usr2/aux12/etc/pgms/find/search_family_parts is designed to be similar to the other Search MENU programs already in use. There are detailed instructions on how to use this program. This program does most of the work for you. You just need to answer a few simple questions, and it does the rest.
There is also another method that probably isn't quite so familiar. This method uses your Web Browser and forms to help you find parts. This can be found at an internal Raytheon server. An example search is also available.
No problem. We thought of this too. If you already know the name of a part and just want to see if it exists, and generate it if it doesn't, there are a couple ways to do this as well.
The first method uses a companion to the first search you were introduced to. It is /usr2/aux12/etc/pgms/find/check_family_part. There aren't detailed instructions for this one, so I will explain them here. Type the full name of the part at the prompt. The program will tell you if it exists, and if it doesn't, ask you if you want to generate it. You answer yes or no, and that's it.
If you prefer the Web Broswer approach, you can enter the part name at an internal Raytheon server. This one will tell you if the part exists, and give you a button to push to generate it if it doesn't.
As we mentioned before, these parts are read-only. If you want to modify one of the parts, you will have to copy it to another name in some other area. There are some parts in the library where you must do this in order to use them. There is a group of profiles of structural members, for example, that you have to copy and then extrude yourself.
One important thing to consider here is that once you copy a part from the library, you lose all the other benefits of using a library part. In effect, it becomes just an ordinary part. You do, however, have the benefit of not having to build this part.
If you have a group of parts that you think would be a good candidate for the family of parts library, you should contact the librarian for more information. This is to prevent multiple people from building the same family for the library at the same time. However, if you have a project that uses a group of parts that you think could be made with a family, but shouldn't go in the library for some reason, you should start by reading the manual on Creating a Family of Parts. There is also information in the online documention for CADDS that describes how to use the Family of Parts software. This includes information on how to generate the parts yourself. Currently, only parts in the Family of Parts library can be generated using the automated generation system provided by the search engines.
That's simple. Just send mail to the librarian.