Copying Dynamic Components

[AGLANGER]

Hi,
I have a question regarding dynamic components in relation to copying.

For example, let’s say you make a basic kitchen cabinet (2 sides, top, bottom) with all the parts built as individual components. Then you nest them into one larger component and create a dynamic cabinet where the width of the cabinet can be user defined. The lenX of the top and bottom would = user defined value, as well as the position X of the right cabinet side (assuming your origin is to the left).

Up to this point I understand. Now let’s say you set the width of the first cabinet to 12". Then you make a copy of the cabinet and set the width of the copy to 24". The copy is just that a “copy” of the first cabinet. As such I assume all the components nested within the copy are also just “copies” of the first cabinet’s nested components.

The only thing is the top/bottom of the original cabinet have a length set to create a cabinet of 12" width - While the top/bottom of the copy cabinet have a length set to create a 24" cabinet.

It seems to me that this creates two copies of the same component or “Definition” that are not the same or identical. I didn’t think this was possible (until I started playing around with dynamic components).
My understanding is that a copy of a component will always match exactly the original component (and that a change to any instance of that component will change all other instances of the same component).

Is this difference when making copies of dynamic components with user defined options?

Thanks in advance

[DaveR]

Resizing the sub-components is done with scaling. You can see how this works by manually scaling a copy of a component. If this is done without opening the component and scaling the geometry, you’ll see that the two instances can have different dimensions.

Generally it doesn’t matter anyway. The components will get listed separately. These are a couple of instances of a dynamic drawer component that I made to use with a specific type of drawer glide hardware. As you can see, the parts for each drawer get listed separately in a cutlist.

FWIW, this component wasn’t modeled for outputting the individual parts in a cutlist. The normal output provides information for ordering the drawer boxes from the supplier.

[pcmoor]

@AGLANGER

t seems to me that this creates two copies of the same component or “Definition” that are not the same or identical. I didn’t think this was possible

A normal component and its copies can be scaled independently (stretched, shrunk, their geometry distorted, like a hole in the scale=1, will be an oval, scale = 1.5) without any need to make them unique, the same applies to a (DC) dynamic component. Scaling includes the thickness as well as length and width. To set the thickness means creating formulas, these formulas or attribute changes will make the DC unique if copied and resized. Just as Dave showed in the example above.