I have created an assembly with a flange that uses clamps. I have pulled 4 clamps in from Content Central and was able to create tangent mates for two of them, but the other two don't seem to work properly. I can select the same component elements, apply the same tangent mate, but the behavior obtained is completely different and unexpected. In the screen shot below, the Tangent 10 mate the problem mate. The Tangent 5 and 6 mates were made the same way and turned out ok.
it behaves as expected for me - it still has a lot of freedom with only the one mate - add the others and it will be easier to follow how it is moving.
also, if these are to be evenly spaced, I would mate 1 and do a circular pattern.
Interesting... I deleted the two loose clamps, used control-drag to create a copy of the #1 clamp in the design tree, and then re-made the mate. Here's the behavior that I see:
http://fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu/~barber/SWmovies/forum/spider_clamp.wmv
Moreover, in playing around with the first two mates, I find that I can easily pull the clamps away from the edge of the flange - something that I thought I would not be able to do with a proper mate. Am I missing something here, or do I have a corrupt installation.
the tangent mate does not force contact. You may notice that the clamp rotated while you were draging it around - that was to maintain the tangency requirement you have added. you will need additional mate(s) to keep it on place.
nothing appears wrong with your install from this.
Thank you.
"The tangent mate does not force contact." - I now understand. By using one of the orthoganal views and keeping the mouse inside the motion, I was able to position it. I must have simply gotten lucky with this mouse behavior the first two times.
I have yet to find a mate that will constrain the inner plane of the clamp to the outer face of the flange w/o affecting it's freedom of motion around the flange - this behavior is normal for the physical items once the claw is engaged.
Thanks for your responses - I learn something every time I post.
I haven't had a use for it yet, but the cam mate should be a tangent mate + contact - if you really want to leave them free to spin around.
Hi Jeremy,
I tried, but was unable to get SW to create a cam mate. I did finally find a set of mates that worked for me as follows:
1. Tangent mates for all four pieces and use mouse trick to pull them up.
2. Coincident mates on the perpendicular surfaces to allign vertically.
3. Coincident mate between planer surfaces on clamps opposite one another. (two sets)
4. Perpendicular mate between two planer surfaces on two clamps adjacent to one another.
5. And finally, a lock mate between the same two clamps used in #4 above.
This mate combination provided the expected behavior, although it constrains the clamps to 90 degrees (in this case) and that is an aditional constraint. However, if needed the angle mate could be used rather than the perpendicular.
(apologies if this post looks bizarre - the forum doesn't seem to like IE9 - installed under duress)
it behaves as expected for me - it still has a lot of freedom with only the one mate - add the others and it will be easier to follow how it is moving.
also, if these are to be evenly spaced, I would mate 1 and do a circular pattern.