Adding Holes In NX7.5...
Adding Holes In NX7.5...
(OP)
Alright, a technique I used to use in NX4 to locate hole features was to creat a sketch on or off the plane the hole would reside on. With this sketch displayed (Layer on.) I would open the hole feature dialog menu and specify the desired hole dimensions. Then select the face the hole was to be located on and then select a point on the sketch as the location point. Hole would be created in the solid as desired. Editing was simple by just adjusting the original sketch as desired.
In NX7.5 I have yet to figure out how to replicate this process. It seems as though the sketch must reside on the face on which I want the hole to be loacted.
Can anyone please give me some advice on how to do this?
Thanks.
In NX7.5 I have yet to figure out how to replicate this process. It seems as though the sketch must reside on the face on which I want the hole to be loacted.
Can anyone please give me some advice on how to do this?
Thanks.





RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
The second approach would be to go ahead and select the face that you wish to place the holes, as if you were going to create sketch points on the face, but instead of defining new points, just select your existing off-surface points and they will automatically be projected onto the selected face and will be used to define the origin of the holes. And they will be associative so editing any of those original off-surface points will cause the actual points being used by the hole function to update as you would expect them to.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
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http://www.siemens.com/plm
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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
Your first option works with thru holes, but would not work with holes to a depth, counterbore, or countersunk holes that required starting on a particular face.
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
As for the first, yes it's only practical for through holes, but if you're creating non-through holes or one which require a starting face, then use the second option as that's virtually the same as how pre-NX 5.0 worked, except for having account for that extra point which is only a couple of extra actions, select the point and hit the 'Delete' key.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
As for why we implemented it this way, originally the first point was not actually being created until the user had confirmed the entry, but so many people ended up thinking that a point had been created that they would enter the point creation step and then leave it before the point was accepted forcing them to start over. Finally, after testing this with users, both internal and actual customers, it was decided that it would be better to ACTUALLY create that first point as part of the face selection action. Besides, with the advent of the 'auto-dim' behavior in NX 7.5, the consensus was that even if the point was in the wrong place, it would now be fairly easy to edit the location, so the fact that a point was ALWAYS created was now seen as only a minor issue.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
Regards
Frank.
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
It has got to be driving tool designers batty to have to delete that "free" hole all the time.
If, during testing, a few users were being confused as to whether a point they created was being accepted, I'm sure that after banging their heads against the wall a couple of times, they could learn the correct way to use the hole creation tool.
Instead, the development team makes a decision to hamstring ALL users with the unwanted hole feature.
Dumb.
Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community..
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
Frank, that is what I do most of the time. However, I like the idea of being able to just click my placement face and have the sketch environment open. I just don't want any sketch tools to launch automatically. More often than not I'm placing 2 or more holes at once and I do it by drawing lines and using the endpoints, drawing rectangles and using the corners, etc. I don't often place just one point so even with auto dimension I would delete that point and draw a rectangle instead most of the time. If I am placing a single point it is usually because I want a counterbore coming in from a face that is opposite some already existing hole. In that case I usually do an associative point projection instead of placing a point and then constraining it coincident.
The automatic behavior must be great for someone's purposes or it wouldn't be in there. I just wish I could turn it off or change the tool that automatically launches if I want to.
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
And if you really DON'T want to create a point (but then why are you even in the Sketcher) you can follow the workflow described by FrankMalone, but it will require an extra button push. As an alternative, if you do happen to select the face with the intention to sketch some points but you don't want the point which was created automatically, just press MB2 and then Ctrl-Z and it'll be removed and you can then continue to sketch whatever you wish.
Which brings me to this; you say that this was a "bad decision", however if we update and modernize some legacy function, but it requires an extra button push or selection, we get criticized for adding extra steps. In this case we designed the function so as to save button pushes and what happens, no one notices that but rather they are surprised by the fact that one action, selecting a face, resulted in something unexpected, a point being created (one that you'd eventually have to create anyway). Well that's the sort of thing you have to do in order to save button pushes. If we already know what the most likely NEXT ACTION is going to be, in this case, creating a point, why would we NOT go ahead and perform that operation automatically
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
You're darn right --- the result is ALWAYS not as I expect.
I'm learning to expect that.
Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community..
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community..
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
You will also see the alignment reference triad. Double clicking any of the direction arrows will reverse the direction of that axis
RE: Adding Holes In NX7.5...
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
UG/NX Museum: http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.