Locating Sub-Assembly part to Main Assembly part.

[PizzaEatingestSOA]

I'm trying to mate a 90 degree connector of my PC Board Sub-Assembly to the chassis in the Main assembly.

Pick - PC Board SA > Edit Sub-assembly. The main assembly turns transparrent.

I pick the connector > Add/Edit Mates. I can pick the surfaces in the sub-assembly but not on the Main Assembly.

Does anyone have any ideas how to accomplish this. I'm just trying to locate the connector to the assembly before I redefine it in the sub-assembly.

Solidworks 2005
SP0.0

PESOA

 

[MadMango]

You don't have to "Edit SubAssy". Look up Mating in SW Help.

Just pick the surfaces or planes that you need to Mate in the main Assy and apply Mates.

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[CorBlimeyLimey]

This is a limitation of SW.
What I normally do:-
1) Place & mate the connector in the top level assy.
2) Use the Tools > Re-organize Components feature to move the connector into the required sub-assy. You can also use the Feature Manager & simly drag-n-drop it. Either way the mates will be lost or broken & can be deleted or suppressed.
3) Either Fix the connector in the sub-assy or create new mates to keep it in its position.


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[PizzaEatingestSOA]

Mad Mango,
This didn't work for me. When I applied the mates for the surface on the connector to the surface on the chassis, it over constrained my sub-assembly and didn't move the connector. I'll have to look into this further.

CorBlimeyLimey,
Thanks for the Re-organize Components tip. I know a similar command from "some other CAD package" and was looking for it.

What I wound up doing was Edit > Disolve Sub-Assembly, Edited the mates on the connector in the top assembly and then re-created the sub-assembly using "Make new sub-assembly here." I did have to redefine the Mates for the connector. If it was a larger sub-assembly that may have been complicated and I would choose to use the Re-Organize Components command.

I'm pretty sure that I had seen a setting in options or somewhere else that allowed the choice of showing the main assembly to be shown as transparent or not when modifying a sub-assembly. I'm thinking that if the main assembly isn't transparent, the surface should be able to be picked. I hope I find that setting again some day.

PESOA

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Tools > Options > System Options > Display/Selection & in the drop down for Assembly transparency for in context edit select Opaque.


Making the best use of this Forum. faq559-716
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Helpful SW websites every user should be aware of. faq559-520

 

[SBaugh]

Check your Display/Selection - "assembly transparency for in context edit" - set it to something other then "Opaque assembly" - also you can adjust the slider for transparency if you use one of the other types of options.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376

 

[TateJ]

Re-visit your assembly mates & make sure you're not using "too much mate". In other words... can you replace a mating face with an edge or point? Can you use a parallel mate instead of a coincident? ...and so on. I find that you can get away with using "too much mate" 95% of the time - then when that 5% finally gets you - you don't understand what went wrong.

I can try to clarify more if this is confusing. It's a concept that you won't find in the manuals or help menus.

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