This tip concerns duplicate naming of flat patterns for sheet metal parts, but can also apply to any models with family tables.
If you Save a Copy of a sheet metal part with a flat pattern, you must rename the resulting flat pattern model. If you forget to do this, you get error messages telling you that there are different parts with the same flat pattern name. Unfortunately Pro/ENGINEER doesn’t automatically tell you what those parts are.
To find out what parts contain duplicate instances, all you have to do is set
1. the config.pro option save_instance_accelerator,
or
2. the instance accelerator option to Always (found under the File dropdown menu).
The .idx file generated then lists all family table parts and their instances. If you open this .idx file in word pad, you can use the search tool to find out which parts have the duplicate flat state.
Neal Hanratty is a research and design engineer at Terex Finlay in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.
