sabassemblies

[johand]

Hello,

I have an ASM with two flanges and a tube, representing a flexible.

When inserting this ASM in another ASM i can position the first flange.
Then the problem: i want to align the second flang to another flange in the main assembly and the tube automatically follows...

Is this possible? Thanks, Johan

 

[johand]

Title: SUBassemblies

 

[beachcomber]

I'm not sure if ths works but have a go.
The flexible will have to be an adjustable part, and the sub-assembly will have to be an adjustable assembly.
Then when you place the sub-assembly you will locate the two flanges and the flexible will POSSIBLY realign itself.
How successful it is could depend on how much adjustment you require in the flexible - but remember that it will not maintain a fixed length.
I think you will have to model it something like the form that it takes in the final assembly.

bc

 

[beachcomber]

Hi johand,
I just looked at the image you posted. and with the 2 very different locations for one of the flanges you could have difficulty getting this to work. Hopefully someone else may already have solved this problem before.

bc

 

[johand]

Adjustable part - ok, but the flexible is a tube created with expressroute. i don't think a tube can be adjustible.

Thank already for your input. Johan

 

[beachcomber]

Johan,
Have a go anyway.
I'm sure I tried something like this a few months ago and it did work.
I think I may have created the sub-assembly as an alternate position assembly rather than as an adjustable assembly.
Each member then has the flanges at different positions and the tube adjusts accordingly.
I would suggest creating a new assembly to try it out as you can't revert a family of assemblies back to a normal assembly.
One other thing, your 'flexible' looks like a normal bent pipe. I tend to use a spline curve for the path of a flexible. It gives a much more realistic form.

bc

 

[beachcomber]

Johan,
There may be a solution.
If you create alternate position assemblies, with the flanges in the required positions, you can create one tube path that will follow the different flange positions, or a different tube path for each.
You can then create a different flexible using the tube path in the assembly family member.
Each member is then inserted in the next level up as required.

Because they are alternate position assemblies they will appear as multiple occurrences of the same part in your parts list.

If you need a drawing, create one member with a straight path of the appropriate length.

bc

 

[johand]

Thanks for your input, but:

The flexible asm file resides in a library so "...If you create alternate position assemblies, with the flanges in the required positions..." .
We don't know the flange positions in advance.

"...I tend to use a spline curve for the path of a flexible..." Can you control the bending radius of the flexible this way? A flexible cannot always be bent with a small radius...

thx, Johan

 

[beachcomber]

Johan,
At some point you have to know where your flanges are positioned don't you ? - otherwise you can't put the pipe into an asembly anyway.
As for the spline curve, there is a bit of control but it has to be done by eye really. It depends on how complex the route is, but in your picture your pipe is shown with 3 sections so it should be fairly easy.
In express route create a Curve Segment using the path lines you have already defined. You have the option as to which points the curve is to follow - end,mid or both.
I would start with the mid-points option. When you have the curve you can edit the end point conditions to make it a better form.

There may be a better solution, but not one that I know of.

bc