i was just doing a quick exercise using a model of 2 halfs of a dumbell .a ball on each end of half a bar and want to connect the 2 faces of the bar to make 1 whole dumbell .
trouble is i cant spin the 2nd half of the dumbell to get the 2 faces to connect and make 1 whole dumbell .
the 2 halfs are both in the same orientation so i cant spin them about to get the 2 faces of the bar to mate connect ,any answer to this?
If your able to attach models and assembly here I will look at it.
Couple of things: First of all, when doing a coincident mate, if they're oriented wrong in the preview there is a button you can click near the bottom of the mate PropertyManager that will reverse the mate. Second, if a part is free to rotate you can right-click on it and drag to rotate it.
i managed to get them to mate after getting the 2 parts into a better orientation .i was over expecting the 2 parts to move into the right planes to connect at the 2 faces as i am a newbie .i was expecting to click on the 2 planes on the bar and expecting them to dance into a connection but it doesnt work like that i see .
Yes, it takes a little getting used to. If there are no other mates, when you create a coincident mate between planar surfaces it just means that they're now co-planar, they could be many feet (or meters) away in the other direction. I would suggest a concentric mate on the cylinders to get them aligned.
Check your mates to each part. If you have the front planes or which ever planes mated together then you can't rotate part in assembly. I would undo all mates to the one model then redo the mates and see if that works.