With the release of Wildfire 2.0, the BOM balloonsfor repeat regions have been greatly improved. These changes eliminate two of the biggest time sinks for designers and detailers—cleaning up BOM balloons for large assembly drawings, and having to split BOM balloons so they appear on all necessary components.
Drawing Clean-Up
Detail Mode in Wildfire 2.0 provides new drawing file setup options to help you quickly and accurately position BOM balloons. Using the following options, it’s easy to control initial placement:
def_bom_balloons_attachment EDGE
def_bom_balloons_snap_lines NO
def_bom_balloons_stagger NO
def_bom_balloons_stagger_value 0.600000
def_bom_balloons_view_offset 0.800000
def_bom_balloons_edge_att_sym ARROWHEAD
def_bom_balloons_surf_att_sym INTEGRAL
The No-Split Solution
Wildfire 2.0 also makes it possible to directly show simple BOM balloons for multiple instances of the same component. For example, if a bolt is used 10 times in an assembly, a simple BOM balloon can be shown 10 times. (In previous releases, you’d have to use a Quantity balloon and then split it nine times.) Here’s how to do it.
1. After setting the BOM balloon region as QTY type (or Simple), select Table, BOM Balloon, Create Balloon, Comp&View.
2. Use the Search Tool to find all instances of the component. In this example, we search for a standard bolt named “CSD*.”
3. The search yields six results.
4. After selecting all six bolts, click the OK button.
5. You are now prompted for the QTY number. In this case, it is “1” (i.e., 6 QTY balloons, 1 for each bolt).
Here’s an example of what you’ll see on screen.
Florin Neamtu is an engineer and PTC specialist/trainer in the Advanced Engineering & Technology Division of Belcan Corporation.
