Ballooning options, tips and tricks (BOM related)

First of all, to get something straight and so that we are on the same page, when we talk about ballooning we are also talking about the BOM (bill of materials). The two are linked together and perhaps this is obvious, but it is worthwhile noting.

I’d like to point out just a few of the options related to the LogoPress BOM and ballooning since they provide some nice enhancements over the standard SolidWorks BOM and balloons. There are a great deal of options in the LogoPress BOM which provide the tool designer with a great deal of flexibility and the best way to learn about them is through the excellent LogoPress help file. You will find a Bill of Materials section at the end of the LogoPress help file that is absolutely loaded with just about every option imaginable or necessary to the die designer.

But it is worthwhile to point out just a few of the ballooning options to give you a flavor of what you can find if you dig deeper. Don’t let all of the options below scare you! Again, they bring flexibility and once you've used it on a design and determined the way that suits your company or your customer best, you know how to use it on the next design.

The picture below shows that LogoPress has five main options for balloon organization.

 

 

Below we can see the first and most basic balloon organization method, “Global numbering”.

 

The picture above also shows a drop down box showing the three options that are common options regardless of which of the five balloon organization methods are chosen.

The picture below shows the “Global numbering according to the Balloons positioning order” method along with the options for sorting direction.

 

 

It is the fifth option below which is my personal favorite because it provides the most information possible, “Split numbering for lower, middle, upper parts, and standard components”.

 

With this fifth option shown directly above and with the other two that are not shown, you might get the impression from the pictures above and from the help file that you can’t sort the balloons within each of the “groups” (in the picture above, I am calling the “groups” the upper, middle and lower sub assemblies, and standard components).
But in fact you CAN!

You can easily manipulate the software to do so through a combination of the above pictures along with the LogoPress locking feature shown here in the help file…

 

…and as shown here in this screenshot:

 

 

But if all you want is to have the balloons sorted in order and not pay attention to where they are in relation to the lower, middle and upper sub assemblies and the standard components, then use “Global numbering according to the Balloons positioning order”. Instructions for its use are shown below – this is a screenshot directly from the help file: