Update Modes

Update Modes is a group of properties found only in generic blocks. They serve as a quick way to coordinate some of the application and physical properties of components that are part of the same assembly. For example, if you wish to apply the same temperature value to all components in an assembly that have that property, you can do so by editing the temperature mode of the block that represents the assembly.

Tip: If you wish to apply the same edit on multiple blocks or on the same type of component across different blocks, the Global Edit function may be more appropriate.

The properties that can be passed down to children are displayed separately in the Properties panel. In the Tree View, these properties are shown in the Application – Inherited and Physical – Inherited sections. In the Pi Factor view, they are shown in the Factor – Inherited section.

The Update Modes group is located under the General heading in both Tree and Pi Factor Views.

  • In the Update Children field (available for all prediction standards):
    • Select Always to apply any edits made to the block to all the sub-items under the block, if those sub-items have those properties. The properties that are available will depend on the prediction standard that you are working with. For example, in a MIL-217 prediction, if you edit the "Quality, Capacitors" property, it will apply the same edit to all the capacitors below the block, but will not affect other components that do not use that property.
    • Select Never if you want to set the properties of the sub-items independently from the block properties.
    • Select On Matching to apply changes made to a given property only if the value in the sub-item matched the value in the block prior to the update. For example, if you change the temperature value of a block from 30 to 40, the change will be applied to all components within that block that had a temperature value of 30 before the block was updated. Any components that did not have a value of 30 will not be affected.
  • In the Update Temperature Mode field (available for all prediction standards except FIDES):
    • Select Absolute to replace the temperature in the sub-items with the exact value used in the parent block.
    • Select Increment to increase the value of the temperature in the sub-items by the same amount that you increased the temperature in the block. For example, if you change the temperature value of a block from 30 to 40, that is an increase of 10 degrees. Therefore, the temperature value in the sub-items will be also be increased by 10 degrees.
  • In the Update Component Type field (available only for the FIDES standard), choose a specific component type to apply the changes to, or choose All to apply changes to all component types that use the affected properties.

IMPORTANT: For FIDES predictions, if there are assessments or audits associated with a sub-item's factors, they are cleared if the factor changes.

The Update Modes functionality applies recursively (i.e., to blocks under blocks), provided that each affected block is set to pass down properties. In NSWC predictions, the predefined assemblies are assumed to always pass down properties to their components.

The Update Modes functionality does not affect properties that have been automatically calculated by Lambda Predict. For example, the value of a capacitor's "Voltage Stress" property can either be automatically calculated (from its Rated Voltage and Applied Voltage properties) or entered directly into the field (by setting both the Rated Voltage and Applied Voltage properties to zero). If the capacitor's "Voltage Stress" property contains a calculated value, then any changes made to the same property in the parent block will not affect that calculated value, even if the block's Update Children property is set to Always.

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