best practice approach on how to deal with alternative designs

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I have a quick question to the experienced folks out here. I have a design model with 4 components and one of them is a lid where I have two different designs in mind and like to decide on the final one once I have seen them both after a prototype 3D print.

1. Is it good practice to put the second design of the lid in the same file and switch on/off the one that you like to see? Or would you put the alternative design in a second file ?

2. Am I correctly assuming that copying a component is as easy as it sounds?

Thank you for your input?

Cheers

[paul.clauss · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous

Thanks for posting! 

With regards to your first question, both options would work! It just depends on how you would like to work when editing the new lid designs. Keeping the two possible designs in a single design as separate components would allow you to edit either option in the parent design. You could then simply hide or suppress one option while working with the other. This is the way in which I would try to work - you could easily and quickly compare the options.

You could also copy the parent design and work with two separate files - identical assemblies with respective lid options. This would prevent you from having to hide or suppress components, but would require you to manage two separate files.

Copying components is easy! I have explained some of the issues with how Paste and Paste New differ with regards to instanced components in this forum thread - please have a look and let me know if it helps. If copying components to a new file, you will only have the option to Paste New - meaning the component in the new file will not be linked to the original file it was copied from.

Whichever method you decide to work with, remember to follow R.U.L.E #1!

Hopefully this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions.

[Anonymous]

Paul, thank you for your detailed input. That will help me for now and confirms my thoughts which is nice 😉

Cheers for now...