I dont understand where is the problem... If I make a component copy inside an other component, rotating, moving and scaling the copies work. Test.skp Can you send your SKP file to see the problem ?

Thankyou Anssi! - I didn't think anyone would understand my confusing question. Kind regards, Steph

@hutdowg said: You saved me a lot of time and headaches, I'm still not that advanced when it comes to Dynamic components =\ Me too DC is a kind of maze, dont really know what's working or not, and why... Only tests and expreriences to build some own rules and share them here.

I was a bit misled about the title about Solar Powered Component. I was like an "audio component"? I was looking for information about different types of solar equipment or even wind-powered ones to compliment my recent purchase of wind generator plans.

I was thinking about this method, but I didn't know I will be able to hide the line, so I though my corner will have visible separation with the rest of my frame. I see on your example that they can be hidden and that is totally invisible, so I will that way too. Thank for your help.

Thanks a bunch Aerilius . That works fine for me, though its definitely not working with my dynamic components (where I stretch the object via a text field) Overall I think this would make a good feature request for SU9, the ability to make patterns oblivious to scale changes - maybe another pin? Cheers

That is just what the doctor ordered. Thanks a bunch charly!

That is possible, but not really doable with a Dynamic component. Maybe some of those features to a more simple level. But anything very detailed would be complex to model into a DC. BUT, feel free to learn how to make DC's and try it yourself. I bet you could get some good results with enough time and effort. More likely though, what you want would be much easier to make with a full ruby script. Its one I've started a few times and never quite found the time to finish. One day though... Or you can use this: http://xfrog.com/ It makes files that are virtually impossible to use in SketchUp because they are so big. But if you want truly realistic, its your best bet. And get Maya to go along with it for rendering and model management. Vue would also be a good option. http://www.e-onsoftware.com/

I see what you mean, TIG. I guess I would want the DC to operate like this: Scale in the X only to a user defined length. A post would be located at the beginning and end of Len X [would like to create an option to toggle either 'post to start' or post to end']. Intermediate posts would be spaced at a maximum of 2700. Maybe in Component Options the user inputs number of spacings which shows the spacing dimension....

If you are looking for calculations and reports from SketchUp components, you might take a look at SpaceDesign

@anssi said: I think that your problem is that your subcomponents are trying to reference parameters from their siblings. I understand that parameters can be passed only between grandparent, parent and child. In this case I think the culprit is that the Startstolpe and Endstolpe components are trying to read values from the Panel component. Anssi Thanks, will look in to that!

Hey. I havent made so much progress. Just making copies but not any more. The diameter is 400mm on the long ones and 315mm on the between pipes.

You can import the csv into a spreadsheet or a database program. I like to use FileMaker (a database) for this sort of work, but Excel tables can also be filtered and sorted. Anssi

If you are trying to figure out how to determine if a component is dynamic or not, then like Thom suggested - it is just a regular component with special libraries attached to it. So you would iterate through all the component definitions in the model and find the ones that have the dynamic component attribute library. Then you would select all of their instances, or you would need some other criteria to determine which single instance you want. Do you know how you are planning on singling out the specific instance you want to select?

Hey cody, You can simplify the formula for the upright rack Copies attribute to: Copies: =rack!NumberOfRacks - 1 Same, with the Crossbeam Components: Copies: =rack!NumberOfRacks - 1 I don't have a good answer to what is broken; I would guess it has something to do with decimal rounding of the Copies attribute.

Hi Jim, I've been around for quite a while, but never felt I had much of anything to contribute. Time to try and give some back to all the great contributors on this forum. I don't think the precision is there to get that last <0.1mm on the calculations. I have ran the calcs through an excel sheet for both the spiral staircase and for some I did exploring making a dynamic reducer after looking at perryman's thread, but in each case the calcs are correct but lacking on Sketchup due to rounding errors. I'm going to explore factoring of the calcs to reduce the rounding error, but I feel the final solutions will always come up minutely short. In saying that, the incomplete geometry is only really visible when zoomed in, so for a lot of models it will not be a problem. For me though, this lack of complete accuracy is driving me mad for a solution.

Jim - thank you very much for your answer. Yes, it seems like I have to dig into Ruby programing, hmm, too bad. If anybody else have another opinion, please feel free to give me a hint

I recently was exposed to dynamic components unknowingly thru the Google Hohouse In a perfect world I would have a component library, but I don't use components all that often, so there is no need to add to my lengthy Todo list, "keep components uptodate" which I don't use most of the time. Hence all to often procedure has a habit of getting in the way of the real world. "Like have you not done the vacuuming yet?"

DCs should always be properly inserted from the Components Browser to keep all of their correct properties. However, Copy+Paste between open SKPs should keep a normal component's gluing and cutting behaviors etc, but obviously it can mess with a DCs inner workings. So... if you have downloaded a DC from the 3dW you should do a 'save_as' from within the SKP into which it arrived - so that it is then saved as an external DC-SKP in a sub-folder inside the Components folder set [i.e. it's still a DC with all of attributes and behaviors retained]. Then later on when you are in another SKP you should insert it from the Component Browser [via navigating to that folder, or subsequently from the Model's pane itself if already loaded] it should then insert and behave as originally intended... keeping its attributes and gluing behaviors ???

It works! by using the old ctrl-c/ctrl-v operation. highlight the code ctrl-c to copy the code ctrl-v to paste the code.