Spools

Run Positions and Spool Positions are independent. A Routing Mechanical design may have one or the other, or both.

Because you may require vastly different numbering schemes, the Run Position Numbering and Spool Position Numbering algorithms are provided as NX Open plug-in programs. This allows you to modify or replace the default algorithms.

Spools are automatically detected by NX based on certain fitting ports being designated as Spool Delimiters. When you request that spools be generated for a defined Run, the members of each spool detected are assigned the characteristic SPOOL_ID with a sequence of values generated by the default plug-in, under your control.

Run members are not required to be spool members. Runs may have some members that belong to spools and some that do not. Spool detection assigns every member of a run to a spool, but subsequent operations may result in run members not being spool members (Remove Spool, Place Part, Edit Characteristics, and so forth).

A branch point does not begin or end a spool, unless the branch is a spool delimiter fitting.

Delimiter designation

A run part is designated to be a spool delimiter item by having the characteristic SPOOL_DELIMITER=1 assigned to one or more of its fitting's ports. This characteristic may be an object attribute (defined within the component part), or may be an attribute assigned to the port occurrence in the Routing work part.

If you assign the characteristic to both the prototype and the occurrence, the one assigned to the occurrence takes precedence. This allows a fitting, such as a flange, to be predesignated as a spool delimiter through Qualify Part, but the designation may then be overridden within the work part by the assignment of the characteristic SPOOL_DELIMITER=0 to the occurrence of the port. Rather than having the user go into the attributes interface and create a characteristic or change the value, the Designate Delimiters command is available to make the change.

The characteristic SPOOL_DELIMITER is assigned to fitting ports (not to fixture or multi ports) through the Qualify Part Interface. This is performed when the port is created in the component port, or may be added afterwards. Ports belonging to components created before NX 3 may be edited in Qualify Part to add the spool delimiter designation.

The Qualify Part Fitting Port dialog box has a Spool Delimiter option added for the Routing Mechanical program only. The default is No, meaning the port does not specify a spool delimitation. A port that is not qualified to be a spool delimiter does not have the characteristic SPOOL_DELIMITER = 1 assigned to it.

If you place a fitting that has spool delimiter defined for a port, that definition may be overridden in the work part by assigning the characteristic SPOOL_DELIMITER to the port occurrence in the work part.

Related topics

• Look up more details: Member identification, Identifier generation