I have a part with parametric equations and relationships. The length of the part drives other features through equations. Is there a way in this part file to animate the part going from a smaller length to larger. In the time line, I see the sketch length dimension in a popup at the first key. If I create another key a few seconds down the line, I see the value there as well but I can't seem to make them different.
Never done that. I know you can make your part 'grow' by extruding up to a surface of another part in an assembly, then making the dummy part in the assembly move. Below is a link to an old message where I attached an example of this.
https://forum.solidworks.com/message/72466#72466
Seems so obviuos to be able to do what you're asking...
Is the dimension value you want to chage driving the equations?
You won't be able to animate this within the part file.
Start a new assembly, place the file in the assembly. Also create a dummy (empty) part that is floating.
Go back to the part file, start a sketch line, fix one end (or coincident to origin) and make one end coincident to the origin of the dummy part. Create a driven dimension value for the line.
Create an equation that makes the value of the driven dimension drive the dimension you want to change (you may need to do something like create an = equation rather than just link values). To change the value across time, move the dummy part.
This solution is more flexible than using an up-to-surface extrude, and allows you to change other values such as degrees for flex bends by varying the dimension controlled by the dummy part. Would be nicer to just have the option to change the value in the animation though
I will put up an example file when I have a free moment
Check the file I attached on this post:
https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/27113?tstart=0
It's an in-context built part that depends on a dummy part for it's total lenght.