Does it work in assemblies?

[MecSoft Support]

Yes we are looking at Feature Based Machining as well.

[Bryce]

No it works in Part mode only. Also why would you want CAM in assembly mode?

For me, it would be useful to batch up groups of parts onto sheets of material. Most of our parts come from panel products, and assemblies are the best way in SolidWorks to optimize the layout of items onto a sheet.

I can, of course, save an assembly as part file, but it then breaks links back to the original parts I assembled into a sheet. It makes going back and changing things (feature locations, material thicknesses, etc.) much harder. If I could generate cut files within an assembly, I would be able to revisit files more easily.

[MecSoft Support]

Thanks for your input. It seems that the majority of users want the assembly mode for some sort of parts organization when machining. We are looking into this.

[Andy Birko]

I just wanted to put in another vote for assembly based machining.

One of the advantages of SolidWorks type CAD is that you can do the "Top Down" modeling of a project. When modeling in this fashion, it may be beneficial to manufacture in the same sense.

For example, one of the things I'm working on is a mechanism that lies on a non-arc curved surface. The mechanism will have about 25 rotating parts that are similar but has one feature that's a little bit different on each part because they are at different points of the curve.

When designing in SolidWorks, I design a generic rotating part and insert 25 instances into the assembly. I then use the cut extrude feature in one pass to "customize" each part in the assembly.

Using this same method in manufacture would be ideal.

At the end of the day this is a fixturing issue as mentioned before.

[MecSoft Support]

This is in the works since this has been one of the most commonly requested enhancement.