These are used for tooling workholding. Taken directly from their site, a macro assemles them. They come in unconstrained and un-mated. Anyone have a work-around for mating and constraining?
These are used for tooling workholding. Taken directly from their site, a macro assemles them. They come in unconstrained and un-mated. Anyone have a work-around for mating and constraining?
Use the 'auto mates' tool and Solidworks will assign the neccesary mates depending on if faces are coincident, concentric, etc, etc..
I'm kidding of course but it may not be such a bad enhancement for situations like these. Looks like your only option is to quickly add the mates yourself unless you can find another model.
Don
Don, you really know how to get a guy's pulse going. I too have downloaded a de-sta-co clamp and had to mate components myself. If you have to work with a lot of them, I can see that being a problem.
If they're topologically similar, this procedure might work (coming up with it off the top of my head so don't get your hopes up)
1)download one clamp and open the assembly file.
2)fix the base component
3)insert the subasembly into a new parent asesmbly and make it flexible
4) in the parent assembly, mate the components to each other.
5)save the parent assembly
6)dissolve the subassembly: the components and mates will migrate to the parent assembly
7)'saveas' the parent assembly and overwrite the clamp assembly: you now have a fully mated clamp
keep the parent assembly in the same diretcory as the assembly you just mated
8)download your next clamp and save it as an assembly (don't mate or anything)
9)in windows explorer, browse to the parent asesmbly folder, right-click on the child assembly and select 'solidworks==>replace' from the context menu
10)in the replace dialog, browse to your newly downloaded assembly. In the list of affected files make sure the parent assembly is set to update
11)open the parent assembly, it will pull in the new clamp assembly and the flexible mates will apply to the child assembly components (ok, lot of wishful thinking on my part, but you might get lucky or atleast somewhat usable results)
12) repeat steps 6-11
I've got my machine tied up converting files, so I can't try this out, but take a stab at it and let me know what you get.
good luck
John
Sorry, but you can auto define 2D sketches so I thought being a 3D cad system it would have an 'auto mates' feature.... Oh well.
However, the way I understand it, when a model is built from a macro the geomtry ID's will be different everytime so you can't just swap out files.
Don
Don,
By auto mates do you mean fix or lock? (Sorry my SW "on-line" help is not working at the moment)
John,
That sounds like work! I am not trying to see motion but prevent it.
If you don't need to see the motion that you can just 'fix' every component in the assembly by right-clicking on them. And I believe you can shift-select more than one as well.
Don
If you don't need to see the motion that you can just 'fix' every component in the assembly by right-clicking on them. And I believe you can shift-select more than one as well.
Don