Strange interaction between BOM and dropping premade models

[patrykstolinski]

Hello,

I'm currently making myself premade pipes for a project that I know I'll reuse. I've made a folder with various dimensions and angles and so far so good. When I create a new design and drop one premade pipe and do the drawing, then Parts table, it all looks good - it imports the whole part number and description, looking like this:

However once I add another premade pipe into this or even make a new one inside this new design, it messes up the Parts List and it looks like that:

Now how is this even happening? Why is it losing description and changing the Part Number (deleting the symbol for degrees)? 

Thank you for all your input.

[patrykstolinski]

Bump

[mavigogun]

Consider nominating a specific Autodesk soldier in your post.

[patrykstolinski]

Would you mind explaining how do I do that?

[mavigogun]

Check out the list of Top Solution Authors over at the Support forum-

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-support/bd-p/962

Pick somebody from that list and tag them in your post by prefacing their name with an @ symbol- such as @patrykstolinski.   Team members have the Autodesk emblem next to their names.

[patrykstolinski]

As someone here advised, I'm asking the top solution author @paul.clauss for help. 

[paul.clauss]

Hi @patrykstolinski

Thanks for posting! I tried to recreate this behavior today and was unable to - the parts list updated as expected for me and did not lose any information.

Have you observed this behavior in only this file, or can you recreate this in a new file? If you are able to recreate, please share your step-by-step process with me. For clarity, I've walked through my process in the screencast below.

It seems like you may have changed the browser hierarchy in the model when the new part was added, but it is hard to say without having a look at the file. If you can reproduce this issue adding parts to a new file, please let me know - a screencast may be helpful in illustrating your workflow.

I hope this helps and look forward to hearing from you! 

[patrykstolinski]

Hello @paul.clauss and thank you for your reply!

So what you're doing is working flawlessly for me aswell. I might have worded myself poorly, though, as it's not the issue I'm having, let me explain in depth what I'm trying to do.

1. I create a couple of components (draw a straight line in sketch mode, then create->pipe with desired properties, then rightclick on the 'body' and 'create components from bodies'). I then go to preferences and apply whatever descriptions I need, here being R=10L=100 for example. I then save it under "r10l100" in 'pipes' folder. The goal is to pre-make some specific lengths of those pipes because I know I'll later reuse them constantly. So there's lots of random pipes with preferences looking like this:

2. I create a new design (called TEST for the purpose of this text) in which I need to draw whatever muffler I need - so instead of making all those pipes by myself again, I drag and drop the parts I made in step 1 whenever I need a specific one. Only when I drag 'r10l100' from the data panel to design 'TEST' preferences look like this:

So already we can see that there's description missing. HOWEVER, if I create the drawing from design  TEST, despite the description not actually being shown in the design window, creating the parts list shows this:

so the description went along, it's just not shown, at all, in preferences in 'TEST'. Weird thing is, if we drag another copy of the same component, it'll 'erase' the description:

Creating new components and adding preferences in 'TEST' works just as you have demonstrated. The goal is however to premake lots of pipes and then drag and drop them without losing the description and part number. I've tried it with pipes, regular boxes, nothing works. If it's still unclear I'll record it tomorrow.

Thank you for your time!

P.S Quick question regarding the pipes themselves - is there a way to automatically obtain information such as diameter (as I create it with tool Pipe with specific diameter) and list it in Parts List? Preferences show only xyz dimensions, so I'm not sure whether or not I can actually drag a diameter out of it.

[paul.clauss]

Hi @patrykstolinski

Thanks for posting! When you use the "create components from bodies" command, are you naming the new component with the same name for the new component as the pipe file was named as initially? This was the only way I could reproduce this issue.

This workflow can be confusing, as the Parts List will show the level of components that actually contain bodies in the design. While you entered the description for the top level component group, the parts list is looking at individual components. When you create a body from the component that alters the browser level shown in the parts list, you must be sure that the newly created component has the appropriate description as well.

I've shown this in the screencast below. I hope I understood the workflow correctly - please let me know if I did not!

I also recorded this simplified screencast, which may help clarify things. I hope this helps!