Replace Components PropertyManager

An assembly and its components may go through many revisions during the course of a design cycle. This is especially true in a multi-user environment where several users can work on the individual parts and subassemblies. A safe, efficient way to update the assembly is to replace the components as needed.

  • You can replace a part with a subassembly or vice versa.
  • You can replace one, more than one, or all instances of a component at the same time.
  • You can replace a component with another that has the same name and type but comes from a different folder.

To replace one or more components:

  1. Do one of the following:
    • Click Replace Components (Assembly toolbar).
    • Click File > Replace
    • Right-click a component and select Replace Components.
  2. Set options as described below, then click .

    The selected component instances are replaced.

    If you chose Manually select, choose the configuration to open in the Configurations dialog box.

    If you selected Re-attach mates, the Mated Entities PropertyManager appears. Additionally, a window shows a view of the original component with the missing mate entity highlighted, and the Missing Entities pop-up toolbar appears.

Selections

Replace these component(s) Select the components to replace. Select All instances to replace all instances of the selected component.
With this one Displays a list of open files. Select from the list or click Browse to locate the replacement component.

Options

Configuration Select one of the following:

Match name

The software tries to match the configuration name of the old component with a configuration in the replacement component.

Manually select

Enables you to select the matching configuration in the replacement component.
Re-attach mates The software tries to re-attach existing mates to the replacement component.
If the old component has a mate that includes a named entity, and the replacement component has a corresponding entity with the same name, the software uses the corresponding entity when re-attaching the mate. You assign names to entities in the Entity Property dialog box. To access face and edge names in a lightweight component, either resolve the component or save the assembly in SOLIDWORKS 2012 or later.