I have an assembly that has two ranges of motion that I want ultimately show in a drawing. My logic tells me that I can create two different configurations, one showing the minimum range and the other showing the maximum, then define the views per configuration in my drawing. I guess I have two questions:
1. Is this the most efficient way to create my different views?
2. How do you define a specific configuration to be used when placing a mate?
Hi Alan,
If I'm visualizing what you're saying correctly then I believe all you will need to do is go into your first configuration make the appropriate mate. Create another configuration. This configuration will look identical with all of the same mates and features. Find the mate that dictates the motion you are hoping to change. Right click and "suppress" it. Then go in as usual and create the mate you are looking for. Hope this helps!
Tyler
Thanks guys. A co-worker of mine showed me a way to define the configuration a mate belongs to after the mate has been defined. Here is a screen shot:
I was hoping there was a way to accomplish this when the mate is being created and not after.
There is. See the box marked "All Configurations" in the popup?
If you click on it, you get other options - "This Configuration" & "Select Configurations".
I am only able to get to this window after the initial mate has been defined, going back and editing the mate dimension. When creating the mate, from the PropertyManager, the option of defining configuration is not there.
I do not believe there is a a way to do that during mate creation - if you think you would use it a lot, put in an enhancement request.
Thank you Jeremy. I think that this would be a good enhancement being able to provide ranges of motion in equipment design, especially within a 2d drawing, without adding un-necessary constraints(mates) to the model. How do you submit an enhancement request?
check out this discussion. it is from 2010, but I believe the process has not changed.
If using a Distance or Angle mate, you can do it all with a single mate, without needing to create two mates and supress one.
That sounds like a good plan. To stop a mate you add in one configuration becoming active in another you have to set the properties of the configurations. If you have already created the configurations this means right clicking on each one and choosing properties, you need to make sure "Suppress new features and mates" is ticked.
With this option selected a mate added to one config is not added to the others. Alternatively if you need to turn the mate on/off in specific configs find it in the feature manager right click and choose configure feature.
To show the range of movement on the drawing you could use the alternate postion view, this allows you to pick an existing config or create a new one (using collision detection usually) My preferred method is creating configs as it is less likely to get messed up later.
If you don't want to use the alternate postion view you can simple add duplicate views and choose which configurations is shown for each in the property manager on the left.
Cheers
Alan