Hi all,

I have watched a lot of discussions about macros and API, but I'm not a programmer, therefore my knowledge is poor in this area.

We have to deal with biiiiig assemblies (between 2000 and 7000 components) which is painful in SW2009.

Our main issue is not opening or rebuilding them, but pack&go or saving those files or their drawings takes forever and some (between 60-90 minutes).

We need to change/add some kits containing few components into these big assemblies.

For example, let’s say we have to change brakes and wheels for a sport car. The car itself is a big assembly, named "CAR". For the new kit assembly, named "KIT", we add the "CAR" assembly into "KIT" and brakes and wheels as components. After mating brakes and wheels, we have to delete all mates and fix everything. Before saving, we declare "CAR" as "Excluded from BOM". When checking in the "KIT" assembly, the PDM ignore "CAR" assembly, because we instructed PDM to do that. Basically, we need "CAR" for initial mating and as background to be showed in “KIT” drawing. Since SolidWorks has no similar function to "background" in ProE/Creo, we have to carry on the whole car, even we don't need that anymore. In ProE, I would add the “CAR” in the “KIT” assembly and in ProE drawing, I will take a picture with “CAR” edges. After that, I will redefine mates to delete all references to ”CAR” assembly and delete the “CAR” from “KIT” assembly. At the end, I will have a “KIT” assembly with just needed components (shown as brakes and wheels in the air) and a drawing with kits positioned on the “CAR” ghost. The “CAR” ghost in ProE drawing is like a 2d sketch with all edges converted into lines, arc and splines.

I tweaked Windows XP 64x SP2 for best performance and SW2009 SP5.1 for best performance and LAM as described in some very useful documents found in this forum.

Questions and kind requests:

- where would I find a macro that automatically count minutes when a big assembly is saved or copied with pack&go?

- is there a macro or a function in SW2009 similar with "background" function in ProE/Creo?

Thx in advance.

Silviu Nita

CSWP 2002, CAD Manager

PC specs:

DELL Precision T1600,

CPU: INTEL XEON E31225@3.10GHz

GPU: NVIDIA QUADRO 2000 / 259.81

RAM: 16 GB

OS: WIN Xp SP2 64x

SW: SolidWorks Premium 2009 SP5.1