How to best position many shaft components

When a significant number of shafts need to be positioned, it can take a long time to do this individually. This is commonly the case when shafts representing bolts are added to a Romax DT model. Each time a shaft is added the user interface (UI) takes a little longer to update, so large number of bolts (100+) can cause a noticeable slow down. If instead of positioning each bolt in turn the bolts are positioned using a planet carrier component, it can be done in one go and save a lot of time.

This occurred in a recent commercial project when a wind turbine main bearing was being modelled. The inner ring was connected to adjoining shafts with over 100 bolts and the outer ring to adjoining shafts by over 130 bolts, both in circular arrangements. The bolts were initially positioned individually, but by the time most of these bolts were positioned it would take around ten minutes for the UI to update each time a new bolt was positioned. This was unworkable. The bolts were then positioned in a planet carrier component, with appropriate pitch circle diameters (PCD) and angular positions. Once all bolts were added to the list of connected components, the UI took roughly ten minutes to update and the task was complete. This saved many hours of waiting for the UI to update. 

Note 1: the planet carrier process can be used for bolt arrangements that are not circular and not on a single plane. In that case, care would need to be taken to ensure that the PCDs, angular positions and offsets are appropriately set.

Note 2: creating proxies of an original bolt shaft is much quicker than creating the same shaft many times, and will mean that any amendments done to the original shaft will be replicated in all the proxies, rather than having to change every shaft.