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AUTOMATIC MATE UPDATES?

Question asked by Carl Dahm on May 19, 2014
Latest reply on May 19, 2014 by Carl Dahm

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I am working with a frame weldment right now and have my assy complete. The size of the square tube changed from 2" x 2" x 11ga (.120) to 2" x 2" x 7 ga... now all of my mates need to be redefined along with all of the planes I created. I don't want anything else to change. Most of the mates are distance from an edge or midpoint; nothing that would be effected by the thickness of the tube.

So my question is, is there a button or some command the makes SW take a guess as to where things should be mated based on previous mate values? I don't want to have to go through my 30 or so mates and redefine relationships. Also this assy is actually a subassy of a larger assembly which has configurations and closer to a hundred mates that are pretty delicate, so I am assuming that those will be messed up even if I clear it up at the subassy level (haven't looked yet... too afraid)

Patrick O'Hern May 19, 2014 10:08 AM

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No, there is no magic button. You'll need to redo your mates. I would suggest mating to sketches and planes, rather than faces if at all possible. Faces have a tendency to get "renamed" as things change in a part, and that can cause problems for assembly mates sometimes.

If you are using SW 2014, I would recommend looking into useing configurations for your weldment profiles. It should eliminate the "lost faces" issue when switching between similar profiles.

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Glenn Schroeder May 19, 2014 10:03 AM

When you changed profiles SW lost the reference to the faces. That's why the mates blew up. As much as we would like it to sometimes, SW won't assume that face A becomes face B and use it for the mate when face A goes away.

I don't know of any way to fix it now other than going through and fixing each mate. I do have a couple of suggestions for the future.

1. Use planes in the parts to mate to whenever possible. Those won't change if the profile changes so the mates should be okay.

2. In the situation you described, another option would be to expand the Structural Shape function and edit the profile sketch to match the new profile instead of editing the feature and selecting a new sketch. Also, while I haven't taken the time to set them up, SW2014 supports using configurations for profile sketches (.sldlfp files). Presumably, if you had yours set up with configurations, you could have selected another configuration of the sketch and the mates would have held. Again, I don't have any experience with this so I can't say if it works or not.

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Carl Dahm @ Glenn Schroeder on May 19, 2014 10:14 AM

In the case of using planes to mate to parts, I am asssuming you are meaning the front, right or top planes because all other planes that were previously defined according to the model had to be redefined again once the profile changed.

I didn't want to mess with the original profile just because it is a profile that I have used and will use again.

I also have tried making a design table for weldment profiles by naming dimensions and copying a page from machinery's handbook to fill in the corresponding dimensions (the time I did try this was for I beams page 2599 MHB 24th edition). I could not get the profiles to configure when in a weldment. Can you (or anyone else) shine more light on how to do this. I could quickly create all profiles in that book by using tables rather than having to set up a sketch for each profile.

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Glenn Schroeder @ Carl Dahm on May 19, 2014 10:32 AM

Carl Dahm wrote:

In the case of using planes to mate to parts, I am asssuming you are meaning the front, right or top planes because all other planes that were previously defined according to the model had to be redefined again once the profile changed.

Yes, I did mean one of the three primary planes.

I didn't want to mess with the original profile just because it is a profile that I have used and will use again.

Expanding the feature in the tree and editing the sketch, as I suggested, only affects the sketch in this one part. It does not feed back to the saved profile sketch (.sldlfp). When you use the Structural Shape function in a part, it copies the sketch from the .sldlfp file, but does not maintain a link to it.

I also have tried making a design table for weldment profiles by naming dimensions and copying a page from machinery's handbook to fill in the corresponding dimensions (the time I did try this was for I beams page 2599 MHB 24th edition). I could not get the profiles to configure when in a weldment. Can you (or anyone else) shine more light on how to do this. I could quickly create all profiles in that book by using tables rather than having to set up a sketch for each profile.

I haven't had time to even start looking into using configurations in weldment profiles, but I've also been curious about how well it works. Hopefully someone else will post about it.

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Carl Dahm @ Glenn Schroeder on May 19, 2014 10:34 AM

I did not know that about the sketch being copied. I always thought it was linked to the weldment profile file. This sort of explains why the configuration method I tried didn't work. It just copied the default sketch and not the "file"...

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Patrick O'Hern May 19, 2014 10:08 AM

If you are using SW 2014, I would recommend looking into useing configurations for your weldment profiles. It should eliminate the "lost faces" issue when switching between similar profiles.

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5 Replies

Glenn Schroeder May 19, 2014 10:03 AM
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When you changed profiles SW lost the reference to the faces. That's why the mates blew up. As much as we would like it to sometimes, SW won't assume that face A becomes face B and use it for the mate when face A goes away.

I don't know of any way to fix it now other than going through and fixing each mate. I do have a couple of suggestions for the future.

1. Use planes in the parts to mate to whenever possible. Those won't change if the profile changes so the mates should be okay.
2. In the situation you described, another option would be to expand the Structural Shape function and edit the profile sketch to match the new profile instead of editing the feature and selecting a new sketch. Also, while I haven't taken the time to set them up, SW2014 supports using configurations for profile sketches (.sldlfp files). Presumably, if you had yours set up with configurations, you could have selected another configuration of the sketch and the mates would have held. Again, I don't have any experience with this so I can't say if it works or not.
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- Carl Dahm @ Glenn Schroeder on May 19, 2014 10:14 AM
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  In the case of using planes to mate to parts, I am asssuming you are meaning the front, right or top planes because all other planes that were previously defined according to the model had to be redefined again once the profile changed.
  
  I didn't want to mess with the original profile just because it is a profile that I have used and will use again.
  
  I also have tried making a design table for weldment profiles by naming dimensions and copying a page from machinery's handbook to fill in the corresponding dimensions (the time I did try this was for I beams page 2599 MHB 24th edition). I could not get the profiles to configure when in a weldment. Can you (or anyone else) shine more light on how to do this. I could quickly create all profiles in that book by using tables rather than having to set up a sketch for each profile.
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  - Glenn Schroeder @ Carl Dahm on May 19, 2014 10:32 AM
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    Carl Dahm wrote:
    
    In the case of using planes to mate to parts, I am asssuming you are meaning the front, right or top planes because all other planes that were previously defined according to the model had to be redefined again once the profile changed.
    
    Yes, I did mean one of the three primary planes.
    
    I didn't want to mess with the original profile just because it is a profile that I have used and will use again.
    
    Expanding the feature in the tree and editing the sketch, as I suggested, only affects the sketch in this one part. It does not feed back to the saved profile sketch (.sldlfp). When you use the Structural Shape function in a part, it copies the sketch from the .sldlfp file, but does not maintain a link to it.
    
    I also have tried making a design table for weldment profiles by naming dimensions and copying a page from machinery's handbook to fill in the corresponding dimensions (the time I did try this was for I beams page 2599 MHB 24th edition). I could not get the profiles to configure when in a weldment. Can you (or anyone else) shine more light on how to do this. I could quickly create all profiles in that book by using tables rather than having to set up a sketch for each profile.
    
    I haven't had time to even start looking into using configurations in weldment profiles, but I've also been curious about how well it works. Hopefully someone else will post about it.
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    - Carl Dahm @ Glenn Schroeder on May 19, 2014 10:34 AM
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      I did not know that about the sketch being copied. I always thought it was linked to the weldment profile file. This sort of explains why the configuration method I tried didn't work. It just copied the default sketch and not the "file"...
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Patrick O'Hern May 19, 2014 10:08 AM
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No, there is no magic button. You'll need to redo your mates. I would suggest mating to sketches and planes, rather than faces if at all possible. Faces have a tendency to get "renamed" as things change in a part, and that can cause problems for assembly mates sometimes.

If you are using SW 2014, I would recommend looking into useing configurations for your weldment profiles. It should eliminate the "lost faces" issue when switching between similar profiles.
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