Working with Subassemblies

Creating a Subassembly

There are several ways to create a subassembly:

• You can create an assembly document as a separate operation, then make it a subassembly by inserting it as a component in a higher-level assembly.
• You can insert a new, empty subassembly at any level of the assembly hierarchy while you are editing a top-level assembly, then add components to it in a variety of ways.
• You can form a subassembly by selecting a group of components that are already in the assembly. This creates a subassembly and adds components to it in a single step.

Modifying a Subassembly

As you develop an assembly, you can modify its subassemblies in these ways:

• You can dissolve a subassembly into individual components, thereby moving the components up one level in the assembly hierarchy.
• You can edit the assembly structure by moving components up or down in the hierarchy, or to a different branch of the hierarchy. There are two ways to do this:
  • Drag and drop the components to move them from one assembly to another.
  • Click Tools > Reorganize Components. This method can be easier to use when the FeatureManager design tree is very long, and therefore requires a lot of scrolling.
• You can change the order of the components within a level of the hierarchy.

Limitations in Subassembly Editing

Most of the operations available for editing a subassembly on its own are available when editing a subassembly in context. However, there are a few operations that cannot be performed while editing a subassembly in context:

• Creating a new component in context
• Inserting or modifying a weld bead

For these operations, you must open and edit the subassembly in its own window.