How to back up or fork a model

[bmckelvie]

How does everyone else deal with forking a model tree.  I have a product that we are updating but we want to keep the old model and drawings intact too.   

Every time I have tried to copy a model it completely breaks everything.   note that I keep a 3d party purchased parts library in a common directory.

Thanks

Brent

[Doug Gower]

Hi Brent,

If I just want a copy of a model with all of the parts that are linked, before I change anything I select the model and go to File > Save As. Before you hit save select the option "As Copy (Without affecting open files)". It's next to the save button. I save the assembly to a new folder and then a dialog box comes up with a lot of choices. Most of them are dimmed out. I select the first one "Copy all linked files to the new assembly file directory". As far as the drawings I just copy all those and place them in the same folder. I think that's it. I don't do this very often so I try to make sure I don't select the wrong thing there. I've created a disaster before when I did something wrong.

Is that what you're talking about? The downside to this is then I have an extra copy of everything and I don't want copies of all those parts on my computer. So I would just keep a copy of all that on a backup drive or somewhere else if I really need it.

Doug

[Mike Hatch]

For a design where the .ics and .icd files are linked and you need to save the design to a new one for modification (to keep the old one intact), you need to "save as" the .ics file first, you will then get options to keep the .icd file linked to the new file name.  Then "save as" the .icd file, you then have a new linked set of renamed files.  Keep the old ones and work on the new, for us this is the method to keep up-issues in track.

One caveat - the process occasionally seems to fall over if there are no changes between the old and the new files, IE you have tried to make the copies immediately, we usually make a few careful modifications to the model and then start the renaming process, it then seems to complete correctly.

[HDEAR]

2 hours ago, Mike Hatch said:

One caveat - the process occasionally seems to fall over if there are no changes between the old and the new files, IE you have tried to make the copies immediately, we usually make a few careful modifications to the model and then start the renaming process, it then seems to complete correctly.

Aha - that will explain a few speed wobbles I hit a couple of times. I wondered what went wrong and why it seemed inconsistent.

Thanks for explaining that Mike.