Customizing the Creo Elements/Direct Mold Base Module

The base module allows you to work with one catalog. Catalog data is used for mold and component creation, and modification. You can choose one from a list of 14 available catalogs. The default catalog is DME mm. This can be changed using the function:

To use all catalogs you will need to activate the additional catalogs in the Modules menu. You do not need an additional license to do this. You can specify which of the available catalogs and in what order the catalogs should be displayed in the dialogs.

The default Creo Elements/Direct Modeling customization mechanism is used to customize the catalogs. In the customization directory there is a directory MoldBaseAdvisor. In this directory there are two lisp files:

The first file is loaded during module activation. The second file is loaded when the additional catalogs are activated in the Modules menu. The contents of these files can be overwritten with corporate/site or user customization files. For detailed information about the function please refer to the lisp files in the installation directory under:

The system provides default values for 'Plate Size Rules', 'Oversize Option' in component creation, 'Plate Settings' and 'Component Settings'. The user can change these values while working with the system. With administrator privileges the values can also be stored to a file using the 'Save' button in the following dialogs:

Contents	Dialog	Filename
values for plate size rules	'Plate Size Rules' in Creo Elements/Direct Mold Base menu	estimatedata.data
oversize data for components	'New Component' in Components menu	oversizeuser.data
plate settings (name and color)	'Plate Settings' in Creo Elements/Direct Mold Base menu	moldsettings.data
component settings (name and color)	'Component Settings' in Components menu	moldsettings.data

By default the 'Save' button is disabled. It is strongly recommended that only a system administrator will enable this button. To do so, type: (moldbase-ui::setadmin t) into the enter command line to enable the button. To disable 'Save' again type: (moldbase-ui::setadmin nil).

The files are written to the user-customized directory. An administrator can move them to the corporate/site directory. When the module is started again, files are read from user or site or corporate directory, in the specified order. They define the new system default values. Only the first file found is read by the system.

For a more detailed description follow the links:

• The oversize option defines the hole clearance dimension. The values are determined according to the specific catalogue.

• The plate and component settings define the names and colors of the plates and components and component holes.

To register user defined components use the function register-user-component. Please refer to the help page for explanation of the parameters. The registration can be added to the file mb_customize. You can also find example code there.

The following description is only of interest if the mold bases are stored with a database. The file system is not affected.

• Changing or setting database attributes for user components can only be done in administration mode.

• Database-related attributes can only be changed manually when the part has not already been stored to the database.

Creo Elements/Direct Mold Base provides functionality to define if a user component should be handled like a library part or a standard part. Library parts are non-modifiable parts. They are stored in the database class 'Library_3d'. A library part exists only once in the database. Standard parts can receive additional information for purchase BOM generation in the database. The parts differ (they are in fact different parts) but summarized in the purchase BOM if the purchase BOM ID is the same.

The following steps define the user components database connection:

2. Call the dialog to attach the attributes. For detailed description of this procedure please refer to the help pages.

By default standard components created with Creo Elements/Direct Mold Base are not sectioned in Creo Elements/Direct Annotation, but are kept intact within a section view. You can change this default so that the components are sectioned. The settings will be valid for allcomponents that you create. The following group of components can be sectioned:

Please refer to the component library for details about these components.

Customization can be added to the file mb_customize. This file is loaded using Creo Elements/Direct Modeling's standard customization mechanism. The function to be called to change the default settings is: