So I need to model a garage door and I was pondering the best way to model it so that I can show it opening and closing. I am sure someone has done this before and I am open to ideas on how to best proceed.
So I need to model a garage door and I was pondering the best way to model it so that I can show it opening and closing. I am sure someone has done this before and I am open to ideas on how to best proceed.
I know it might be extra work, but the way I handle projects like that is to model everything in one assembly/or multiple sub-assemblies and then add all the sub-assemblies into another main assembly. The way I do the path mate is to draw a spline line for the length and position of the movement and mate a point or vertex to the spline line.
See this thread...
The 11th Weekly Power-User Challenge (October 20th, 2017): Flipping Mates - Robot Case Study
Hello,
The path mate uses a single point as the entity which will follow the path.
This may work for a single panel OHD with a linkage closing mechanism and perhaps for a rolled door, too.
But for a multi-panel roller-in-track OHD, there are several "points" as all rollers govern the panel positions.
I'm wondering if the path mate point is the first roller that whether this would be enough to replicate movement.
The first roller would must likely behave and the hinges would allow panel pivoting, but what keeps subsequent panels in the track?
Perhaps another method may be needed, I postulate:
Sweep the J profile for the entire track (horizontal, bend and vertical).
Mate each roller tangent to the inner radial track face.
I'm not huge tangent fan, but this may work.
The workflow is dependent on your door type, too, so more detail may yield more fruitful replies.
Kevin
Chain pattern with a path mate.
I did a rolling floor once this way, similar to a garage door except you walk on it. The rolling floor was also the wall and it went around about 180 degrees. I had to check for interference with a bunch of equipment along it's path so I needed it to be able to move to any position so configs were out.
Works about 80% of the time. Apparently like most things in SW however at some point or another the mates will just randomly decide to flip on you and either the leading component or the trailing one will fold in on the chain. You then have to suppress the mate, manually flip the part and unsuppress the mate.
Not a perfect solution but again like all things SW you will get a feeling for exactly where you need to click to prevent flipping while dragging and how far you can go before you need to switch perspective and drag from another part etc.
John Stoltzfus wrote:
Kevin Chandler - Don't forget "Tangent Mates Flip"
Which is the main reason why I'm not a tangent fan.
Vote For
SPR #1051495
This will revolutionize Mating (only in SW, all other mating issues are personal and can't be rectified)
Here's how I would start.
Sorry for the quality of the effort. I tried to spend as little time as possible on this example.
I don't see any way to vote for it.
Fusion 360 revolutionized mating IMO
wrote:
I don't see any way to vote for it.
Here's what I've done in the past. Doing individual path mates for multiple parts is maybe more stable if you have a few panels. On the project I was working on however we had 500+ panels and in some areas I needed 50+ or so to check clearances at the same time.
I hope you are joking.
1st, that link is out of date. (when I go to customerportal.solidworks.com it looks nothing like what is shown in that thread.)
2nd, I found the SPR, but have no way to vote for it.
I kinda hate Fusion 360's mates. Maybe I will like it better the more I use it, but so far it does not seem to work the way I think it should.
I decided I was going to start doing my personal projects in Fusion 360. That lasted for a couple of hours, until I figured out F360 and my workflow were not compatible.
In a simple assmbly, I couldn't get two cylindrical objects aligned. After I gave up on that I realized I couldn't edit a part while in the context of the assembly.
Maybe I will give it a try again in a couple of years.
Scott Perman wrote:
1st, that link is out of date. (when I go to customerportal.solidworks.com it looks nothing like what is shown in that thread.)
2nd, I found the SPR, but have no way to vote for it.
So you don't see this page when you log in?
Are you on subscription?
In addition to this, I see this when I open that SPR:
Instead of path mates why not use a more robust Coincident mate where 2 sketch points per panel are coincident to a single spline sketch? If the original track path consists of lines and circles, create a separate sketch path using Fit Spline so that the resulting spline path is smooth and continuous. Point coincident mates are the most reliable mates.
I started to type up a long explanation, but it's best summed up this way:
I find all of the SW web sites confusing, buggy, and impossible to navigate.
Whether it is me or DSS, I'm not wasting any more time trying to vote for this SPR. (Sorry John.)
Fusion 360 is not set up for "Engineering" workflow. It's more of a hobbiest version of Inventor in my opinion.
That being said for a free product it's a really powerful tool. It's a bit clunky when you're used to IV or SW but it works.
I think they had a vision of what they thought 3d modelling should be, but the users are dragging them kicking and screaming towards how the rest of the cad world operates.
I am doing a regular garage door with 4 panels that go along a L shaped track like what would be found on a standard house garage. I think I am going to try the path mates first and see what happens.
I haven't tried, but I'd guess Path mates would be a big help.