Evaluate/Debug the Part
Once you have finished constraining a master part, you must test it to ensure that it generates variations as intended. The extent of the testing you do depends on the complexity of the part and the intended users. Obviously, you should never release a master part for use by others until you have thoroughly checked it to make sure that it operates as intended.
The easiest way to test a master part is simply to modify constraints and SOLVE for the variations you expect to be needed. Preview mode is especially useful for this type of checking because it never modifies the original part. If you need to examine the variation in more detail than Preview allows, you can SOLVE NoKeep, but make sure you write your original master part out to a file first so that you can recover it.
Here are some tips to keep in mind while you test:
• Try small changes to the part first, until you get a feel for how it is behaving. As you become more familiar with it, increase the size of the modifications until you reach the maximum expected modification.
• Try modifying a single constraint or parameter at a time. In complex parts, the interactions among different constraints are not always obvious until you separate them out this way.
• Try supplying nonsense values or values beyond the expected maximum. Do these break the part badly? If so, you may want to consider implementing macros or expressions that limit the values that the part will accept. These expressions can be incorporated directly into the constraint structure of the master part.