Feature patterns 1

[Sparweb]

What would be a "preferred practice" in this case?

I'm creating a model of a simple part that has a large rectangular pattern of repetitive holes in it. About 3200.
I could have patterned the holes in the sketch, but i expected that an extrude feature from so many sketch lines could have taken a long time to process, and just imagine the tedious process of selecting every single one of the "loops" to make the holes. I was taught that sketches should be as simple as possible, anyway.

Instead I made one simple feature of one hole (it is a keyhole not a circle) as a sketch and then an extrude, which I patterned. That took a lot of processing but my machine solved it in about 60 seconds. A window popped up recommended that I select "optimized" pattern instead. I tried it, and... well it's still processing that 4 minutes later... now I'm not sure what's so optimized about the optimized pattern.

Anyway, making patterns of anything gets some of the designers around the office quite agitated.
Any opinions in the group here about how best to go about it or suggestions on doing it better?


STF

 

[btrueblood]

I guess it would depend on what the end purpose of the model is. Do the patterning if the model will be used for presentations to show the design intent, or "look" of the machine.

But, for a drawing or for simple modelling, I try to minimize the amount of effort for me and my computer. I've done this by creating enough of the pattern to be clear in a detail sketch, in one corner or other obvious "starting place" on the part. In the part drawing, I add the detail view in the area where I modelled the holes, and enough notes and dimensions to give the machine operator information on how to replicate the pattern and where the boundaries of the hole patterns start/stop.

 

[Sparweb]

That's a good point. The holes only appear in certain views of the final drawing, near interfaces with other structures. The rest of the tracks are ignored so why bother putting thousands of holes there?
Thanks!

STF