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Multiple Hinges in Assembly
2

Multiple Hinges in Assembly

Multiple Hinges in Assembly

(OP)
Is there a way to mate two hinges to a door and frame in such a way that when the door swings, the second hinge follows?

For your reference the two hinges are two separate sub-assemblies that are essentially mirror images of each other. I set the sub-assemblies to flexible and mated the first hinge to both the door and the frame. However, Solidworks won't let me mate the second hinge to both the door and the frame. It always tells me that it is overdefined. So I end up solely mating the second hinge to one or the other.

When I move the door one hinge works perfectly, but the second hinge doesn't turn and either ends up interfering with the door or the frame (depending on which one it is mated to).

I've searched pretty extensively on this site for info about hinges and can't find any answers to this particular problem. It seems to me that it would be pretty common to have more than one hinge on a door and that you would need to be able to mate all hinges to both the frame and the door for the motion to be portrayed correctly.  

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

Rather than having the door be completely free  to move sometimes it's better to run it with configurations and / or angle mates.

Dan

www.eltronresearch.com
Dan's Blog

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

2
Are they separate or are is one actually a mirror of the other? If mirrored, break the link between them for starters.
Next, have you tried mating hinge face to hinge face? Assuming that the door and frame are planar and parallel, you should be able to simply do a coincident mate between the corresponding hinge faces, then simply set the distance.
Those are just a couple of ideas. Without seeing the assembly, it's a bit difficult to fully diagnose what's going on.  

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
Design Manager/Senior Designer
M9 Defense
My Blog

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

(OP)
They are actually two separate assemblies.

I have found a work around to make it appear to function correctly. I assembled each hinge sub-assembly so that the plate that mounts to the frame is mated coincidentally to the 3 planes of the sub-assembly. I then created a hinge mate for the pin plate in each. I then assembled the 1st hinge in the top level by mating it to both the door and the frame. I mate the second hinge to just the door and it appears to function correctly, as the plate that is supposed to be mounted to the hinge doesn't move when the door is opened.

It just doesn't make any sense that you can't mate both hinges to both the door and the frame when they are both "flexible". Maybe they will fix this issue in future versions.  

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

(OP)
I can't open those files. When I try to open the files I get an error message stating, "Cannot open ... Future Version:.

I'm on Solidworks 2009 SP3.0. Can you save them to that version?

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

No, you can't directly save to older versions. I could save it as a neutral file format, but it would lose the mates.
Hopefully someone with '09 will come along and help out.  

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
Design Manager/Senior Designer
M9 Defense
My Blog

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

(OP)
Oh yeah, that's right. Funny how in AutoCAD you could always save to lower versions...

Anyways, were you able to mate both hinges to both the door and the frame? Maybe that's a problem in 2009 that's been fixed in later versions.

Attached is a simplified version of what I'm talking about. I believe you can open old versions in newer versions, but not the other way around. I created two configurations in this assembly.

In the default configuration, "2nd Hinge Assembled to Frame", Hinge: B0014014 is mounted to the Frame: B0014012. When you rotate the door, the hinge doesn't move. When I try to mate the rotating component of the hinge to the door, I get the error I previously mentioned.

The other configuration, "2nd Hinge Assembled to Door" has the rotating component of B0014014 assembled to the door. This is a representation of my workaround. When you rotate the door, the rotating component of the hinge rotates and the other part stays stationary, even though it's not mated to the frame.

I would prefer to have the 2nd hinge actually mated to the door and the frame like it would be in real life.

 

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

The hinge assemblies are in the folder, but not the hinge parts. Can you upload just the hinge parts?

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
Design Manager/Senior Designer
M9 Defense
My Blog

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

You should do a pack-and-go of your assembly.  I am having issues opening this one.

Dan

www.eltronresearch.com
Dan's Blog

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

Hi, ssmithdigilab:

I tried 3-hinge sub-asemblies (flex).  I had no issues. I used SW2008 sp 3.1.

Best regards,

Alex

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

Ok, got it.
On one of the hinge sub-assemblies, delete the hinge mate and add a concentric and a coincident mate and the upper assembly should be just fine. I'm not sure why, but SolidWorks doesn't seem to be able to handle having both hinges with hinge mates. A bit of a shortcoming and worth sending in to your VAR in my opinion.

Also, for the record, I don't know of a single 3D CAD program that has the ability to save as a previous version including Inventor.  

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
Design Manager/Senior Designer
M9 Defense
My Blog

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

Jeff,

Only the ones that put the customers convenience before the almighty dollar.  ponder  I don't know of any either.

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

(OP)
JMirisola, when you do that are you able to mate the 2nd hinge to both the frame and the door? I tried what you said and initially it seemed like it worked, but then when I went to save it I got all the yellow triangles on my mates and the "no solution found" message.

 

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

Yes, I was able to mate to both. My steps:

1. Bring the frame into the assembly so that it's the fixed part.

2. Bring in the hinges and door.

3. Mate the hinges to the frame with two concentric mates and one coincidence mate.

4. Mate the door to one hinge with two concentric mates and one coincidence mate.

5. Mate the door to the other hinge with a parallel mate.  

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
Design Manager/Senior Designer
M9 Defense
My Blog

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

(OP)
Alright, that worked. Don't know what was going wrong the last time, but this time I was able to save it without a problem. I even used a coincident mate instead of a parallel mate and that worked, as well.

There are a couple of things that bug me about doing it this way. One of the hinge assemblies has to be left under-defined. I'm kind of fixated on fully defining every component in my assemblies. The other thing is that if you were to use the same hinge part twice, you would need 2 configurations of the hinge - one with the hinge mate, the other with the concentric and coincident mates.

Oh well, guess I'll just have to deal with those things until this problem is addressed.

Thanks a lot for everyone's help, particularly Jmirisola. Did you get any work done today? :)

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

A star for Jeff for being so helpful to ssmithdigilab to get his problem solved.

Cheers,

Anna Wood
Core i7 EE965, FirePro V8700, 12 Gb RAM, OCZ Vertex 120 Gb SSD, Dell 3008WFP 30" Monitor
SW2010 SP2.1, Windows 7 x64
http://www.solidmuse.com
http://www.phxswug.com

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

I have the same problem. I have an access door that hinges out of the way. Everything goes good until I add a Limit Angle Mate. I was able to open the example files above and noticed that it doesn't have a limit mate. You can freely rotate the door 360 deg.

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

Where are you assigning the limit mate, in the upper level assembly or hinge assembly? I've successfully had limit mates in lower level assembly, but angle mates tend to be very tempermental.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
Design Manager/Senior Designer
M9 Defense
My Blog

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

It was in the hinge assembly.
I have removed the Limit mate and mated the second hinge to the first instead of both to my doors. If I go to assembly tab and use "move component" and set it to collision detect, stop on collision it seems to work o.k.  Before I was just left clicking on component and moving it. It seems impossible to not over-constrain with a limit mate no matter what I do.   

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

"Tempermental"  hahaha.  That is the best way to describe Solid Works in general. I started with Cadkey version 17 and have had a hard time with my transition over to Solid Works. I guess you prefer what you start on.

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

(OP)
What I ended up doing was creating a hinge mate in the hinge assembly with max and min values for the angle. Then in the door assembly I assembled one hinge to both the door and frame and set it to flexible. The other hinge was mated just to the door, but also set to flexible. Unfortunately, the assembly becomes over-constrained if you try to mate the second hinge to both the door and frame. Makes no sense, but that is reality. You can, however, still make it "appear" to function correctly.

The key to this is to orient your hinge assembly model in the same orientation as the closed position in the door assembly. The rotation of the hinge in the hinge assembly must also be the same as it would be in the door assembly. In other words, one half of the hinge will be mated to a plane in the hinge assembly, with the other half able to move. The half that's mated to the plane in the hinge assembly must be the same half that would be mounted to the frame in the door assembly (if SolidWorks would allow that).

In the door assembly, when you grab an edge of the door and swing it open, the first hinge will work as it would in real life. Since the second hinge is only constrained to the door, it will rotate with the door. The half of that hinge that would be mounted to the frame in real life stays in the same orientation it has in the hinge assembly model. Therefore, even though it isn't mated to the frame, it appears to be.

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

Do you really need it to be flexible?  My guess is no.  During your preliminary design studies... sure flexible is nice so you can confirm that nothing interferes.  During this time, just suppress the second hinge... or don't put it in in the first place.  Once you know your door is good, add the hinge.

Within the hinge assembly, create a few configurations.  Open, Closed, and XX degrees.  Create configs in your upper assembly if you desire.  This will also allow you to lock down your door angle for the purposes of drawings etc.

-Dustin
Professional Engineer
Pretty good with SolidWorks

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

(OP)
Whether or not you need both hinges to be flexible is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is SolidWorks has this flexible feature, so you should be able to use it if you want to. It makes no sense that you can't have two flexible hinges in an assembly with the hinges mated to both the door and the frame. It is very common for doors to have two hinges.  

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

I think so to. It messed with that whole assebly. I finally just created two config's. One open and one closed, so that everything was solved and the file would be happy. That goes back to the above statement, Solid Works is very tempermental. Right now I don't have any red, so it is happy Solid Works.

RE: Multiple Hinges in Assembly

Having things flexible just adds complexity to the model which in turn slows down rebuilds and introduces opportunities for errors.  Getting it to a point where you can eliminate the flexible situation was all I was suggesting.

-Dustin
Professional Engineer
Pretty good with SolidWorks

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