22 Replies Latest reply on Jun 1, 2015 9:41 AM by Glenn Schroeder

Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?

Nathan Rollins May 28, 2015 12:11 PM

Hi all,

I have an assembly that has many mates that are gray - not suppressed and not failed or over constrained. I am pretty sure all of these are external (could not check them all) - meaning that components get assembled to these features in higher level assemblies.

What are these mates called? (External mates?)

They severely clutter the tree and while working ion the sub-assy, they are completely irrelevant - right? I would never want to address them if I am not in the upper assy. At least I cannot think of a case where I would want access to them. Can their display be shut off? Dealing with mates in SWX has gotten better over the last four releases since I migrated over from Pro/Easy land... ("Easy" has the <sarcasm> tag for clarification) - but managing mates in SWX still pretty much sucks in comparison - in my opinion. Functionally, they

are superior, but trouble shooting and managing... not so much.

Sorry for the rant - any tips on wrangling mates in a big assy?

Thanks!

-Nate

Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?

Glenn Schroeder May 28, 2015 12:45 PM (in response to Nathan Rollins)

Nathan,

Maybe it's just me, but I'm having trouble following you. Typically when a mate is gray in the tree it's suppressed, either completely or in the active configuration. I especially don't understand the part about "these features in higher level assemblies". Are these grayed out mates you're referring to showing up in the main assembly or sub-assembly? Where are they in the tree, in the main Mates folder right below the list of components, or in the Mates folder for the individual component or sub-assembly?

Glenn
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- Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
  
  Nathan Rollins May 28, 2015 8:17 PM (in response to Glenn Schroeder)
  
  Hi Glenn,
  
  My "higher level assy" comment was an assumption that I made too quickly. It sounded good at the time - the short investigation I did at the time showed a purple dashed line of the face it was looking for that I thought belonged to a component that was mated to it in a higher level - indeed, it was, but that is not the reason for the mate to be gray. The mates I am speaking of are not suppressed. I think Jamil has identified what I am seeing - the "External" note in the mate - for whatever reason - refers to the fact that the original component was deleted. I though that when I deleted a part from an assy, the mates got deleted with it. Maybe there's a setting that prevents that? When the software hangs on to all of the mates of deleted components, the mates "folder" can get awfully lengthy. Is there a good reason to keep these un-needed mates? Is there a way to have them deleted when their component gets deleted? Here are some screen shots - to prove I am not crazy...
  
  Thanks for replying!
  
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  - Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
    
    Matt Neuman May 29, 2015 6:27 AM (in response to Nathan Rollins)
    
    Hi Nathan,
    
    The mates that are grayed out and have the (f) in front of them were suppressed by SW because someone has "Fixed" the component in the assembly. If you right click your component in the assembly you should now see the word "Float" in the menu, if you click on that the mates with the (f) will no longer be grayed out and the (f) will go away. You can then right click on the component again and the menu will now say "Fix", once you click on that, SW will return the mates to the suppressed state.
    
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    - Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
      
      Nathan Rollins May 29, 2015 6:41 AM (in response to Matt Neuman)
      
      Ahh - the "f"
      Right in front of my nose.
      
      Nice clarification. Thanks for that as well.
      
      -Nate
      
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  - Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
    
    Glenn Schroeder May 29, 2015 8:04 AM (in response to Nathan Rollins)
    
    Nathan Rollins wrote:
    
    I though that when I deleted a part from an assy, the mates got deleted with it. Maybe there's a setting that prevents that? When the software hangs on to all of the mates of deleted components, the mates "folder" can get awfully lengthy. Is there a good reason to keep these un-needed mates? Is there a way to have them deleted when their component gets deleted?
    
    If they're suppressed instead of deleted, then any mates involving the deleted component and other components can be fixed by selecting another entity. This saves time over needing to apply new mates to replace those that involved the deleted component. But if you want them deleted automatically see this Discussion: Delete mates when I delete components? .
    
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    - Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
      
      Nathan Rollins Jun 1, 2015 7:23 AM (in response to Glenn Schroeder)
      
      Glenn -thanks for the link!
      
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Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?

Jamil Snead May 28, 2015 12:55 PM (in response to Nathan Rollins)

I don't believe there are such things as external mates as you describe. Any mates that happen at a higher level assembly should not show up in the subassembly. If you have mates that are gray but can't be unsuppressed then they may belong to parts that are suppressed, or to entities that no longer exist. Regarding the latter, one would expect this to cause a mate error, which does happen sometimes. However I just discovered that if you are in a top assembly and you mate to a part in a subassembly, then delete that part from the subassembly, the mate will remain in the top assembly and be grayed out and not show any error. So this could be happening to you. To help figure it out you can right click on the mate and Edit Feature. Then it may say the following:
**Suppressed**... - This means it is a mate to a suppressed part
**External**... - This means it is a mate to a part in a suppressed subassembly or it is a mate to a part that has been deleted from a subassembly.

If you are sure that the mate is not needed in any other configurations of the current assembly then I'd just delete it.
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- Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
  
  Nathan Rollins May 28, 2015 8:23 PM (in response to Jamil Snead)
  
  Jamil,
  
  I think you are exactly right - The component was deleted. I never knew "external" was a synonym for "deleted"... Only in Solidworkspeak...
  
  The good thing is I can multi-select the gray mates and "batch delete" - or better "externalize" them :^)
  
  I still wonder what the reason is for the software to keep them. Aren't they completely useless? Maybe if I assembled a new component in the deleted one's place and wanted to repair the mate... But in that case I would use "Replace Component" - right?
  
  Silly until proven otherwise.
  
  Thanks again for your relentless help.
  
  -Nate
  
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  - Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
    
    Peter De Vlieger May 29, 2015 4:58 AM (in response to Nathan Rollins)
    
    Nathan Rollins wrote:
    ... I never knew "external" was a synonym for "deleted"... ...
    
    Not a synonym at all. The clue lays in what Jamil correctly put forward, namely
    "...**Suppressed**... - This means it is a mate to a suppressed part...."
    and
    "...**External**... - This means it is a mate to a part in a suppressed subassembly..."
    
    Although it's surpressed in this configuration of an ASM it could very well be that it is needed when in a different config state .
    
    Surpressed doesn't equal to deleted which means that unless you are absolutely positively utterly sure that there's no way that the mate in question could be of any value in any configuration then you should leave well enough alone, especially if there's any chance that other people will have to work with the ASM in question.
    
    Just my two cents
    
    Have a nice one
    Peter
    
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    - Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
      
      Nathan Rollins May 29, 2015 6:39 AM (in response to Peter De Vlieger)
      
      Peter - I'm getting it now! Thanks for your furthered explanation
      
      I am wondering if SWX treats suppressed items as if they are deleted - they just don't exist in the database WRT the processing. So, if the reference does not exist, it could be suppressed or deleted and the sw cannot know which - by design. That is good knowlege to understand, I guess.
      
      **Suppressed** is known because the reference exists in the same database, but **External** is unknown because the database (assy) cannot be expected to keep track of all the links - think of a screw and all the assemblies it could be referenced by.
      
      Thanks !
      
      -Nate
      
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Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?

Mike Helsinger May 28, 2015 1:19 PM (in response to Nathan Rollins)

Another strategy for you - Folders

If your assembly has many components with loads of mates and you want to organize your tree, select groups of mates, and right click to create a folder. This can be done with mates, with components in your assembly, or with features in your parts. You can then name your folders to keep them orderly, a folder of hardware or fasteners for example.

Also in case you hadn't seen before, if you are concerned with the mates for a particular component they are default ordered under that component's Mates subfolder.
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- Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
  
  Nathan Rollins May 28, 2015 8:32 PM (in response to Mike Helsinger)
  
  Mike
  
  Thanks for your ideas - adding mates to a folder is a great way to organize. I have used the Favorites folder before to segregate important, controlling mates.
  
  I also recently learned a couple of tricks:
  
  also, this one now saves me a lot of time...
  
  And I love and use all the time:
  
  Thanks again for taking the time to coach me!
  
  -Nate
  
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  - Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
    
    Habib Ghalamkari May 29, 2015 12:13 AM (in response to Nathan Rollins)
    
    I use the last quick mate you explained above a lot. But a downside to it is you can not change the alignment.
    Most of times I use it mate two models and then delete it just because I can't change the alignment.
    So I go back to the old way and add the mates I need.
    
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    - Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
      
      Nathan Rollins May 29, 2015 6:33 AM (in response to Habib Ghalamkari)
      
      Habib,
      I complained of the same and then I found the RMB "Flip Mate Alignment." This made it a lot easier for me - also I learned to drag and spin the un-mated component to a place where the two faces were close, but both visible and the alignment seems to always get it right - no need for flipping.
      
      As opposed to the newer and better Creo2.0 - believe it or not, they added a "normal to" assembly constraint - for both planer faces AND AXES and guess what - that is the default if the entities are not within ~15° of parallel. Of course, the default can be adjusted but what a frustrating "enhancement"
      
      And, I do use the "old way" frequently as well.
      
      -Nate
      
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      - Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
        
        Habib Ghalamkari May 30, 2015 1:09 AM (in response to Nathan Rollins)
        
        Nathan,
        I feel much more comfortable to go straight to "Old way" mate than draging the parts to a suitable position first and then use the quick way.
        
        By the way, have you found a solution for adding "Lock Rotation" to concentric mate in quick mate method?
        Anytime I add a concentric mate with quick mate method, I have to go find the mate in tree, click Edit Feature icon and add "Lock Rotation".
        
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        Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
        
        Glenn Schroeder May 31, 2015 4:31 PM (in response to Habib Ghalamkari)
        
        Habib Ghalamkari wrote:
        By the way, have you found a solution for adding "Lock Rotation" to concentric mate in quick mate method?
        Anytime I add a concentric mate with quick mate method, I have to go find the mate in tree, click Edit Feature icon and add "Lock Rotation".
        
        Habib,
        
        You don't need to lock the rotation on each concentric mate individually. What I typically do is insert several items of hardware that have mate references, then right-click on the assembly's Mates folder (the one that's always directly below the list of inserted components, but above sketches, linear patterns, etc) and choose "Lock Concentric Rotation" from the drop-down. (I'm at home now and don't have SW here, so I'm not certain of the wording, but that's close.) That will lock the rotation on all concentric mates.
        
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        Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
        
        Habib Ghalamkari May 31, 2015 8:30 PM (in response to Glenn Schroeder)
        
        wow, I never had noticed it nor seen anyone mention it in any Solidworks related site.
        
        I also never used Copy With Mate.... function because it contains Repeat for normal mates but Lock Rotation is skipped, and I had to lock rotation for each mate manually.
        Million thanks for your hint.
        
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        Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
        
        Glenn Schroeder Jun 1, 2015 8:52 AM (in response to Glenn Schroeder)
        
        Habib,
        
        You don't need to lock the rotation on each concentric mate individually. What I typically do is insert several items of hardware that have mate references, then right-click on the assembly's Mates folder (the one that's always directly below the list of inserted components, but above sketches, linear patterns, etc) and choose "Lock Concentric Rotation" from the drop-down. (I'm at home now and don't have SW here, so I'm not certain of the wording, but that's close.) That will lock the rotation on all concentric mates.
        
        Here's a screenshot. I was at home yesterday when I posted the above so couldn't include it then.
        
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        Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
        
        Ian Worrall Jun 1, 2015 9:24 AM (in response to Glenn Schroeder)
        
        SW always crashes when I use that. I have to lock concentric mates individually to avoid it.
        
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        Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
        
        Glenn Schroeder Jun 1, 2015 9:41 AM (in response to Ian Worrall)
        
        Ian Worrall wrote:
        
        SW always crashes when I use that. I have to lock concentric mates individually to avoid it.
        
        I haven't heard of that happening to anyone else. It may be a trick SW saves just for you. I've had a few times when I'm pretty sure it was happening to me.
        
        SW2013 crashing when selecting Toolbox part
        
        Lock-up on create folder
        
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  - Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?
    
    Mike Helsinger Jun 1, 2015 8:48 AM (in response to Nathan Rollins)
    
    I hadn't looked at the components tab much, good to know.
    
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Re: Best practices for organizing and cleaning up mates?

John Stoltzfus May 29, 2015 6:22 AM (in response to Nathan Rollins)

Thanks for your rant, learning new tips is always a good thing.
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