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Re: Assembling sub-assemblies
@eric_pesty and @Rhett_Robinson
Many thanks for your replies. I realised that, for any part of my assembly that doesn't move, I needed to use Fastened mate. I know it sounds so obvious now, but it was a real penny drop moment when I realised. Put it down as a 'school boy' error!
Cheers,
Lee
Re: Improvements to Onshape - August 29th, 2025
@svenolov_nystrom for a good example of query variable look at @Derek_Van_Allen_BD's image.
Imagine selecting all of those faces, then changing the shape then most of the faces error out. You would have to go back into the feature and reselect the missing faces, or possibly all of them if the shape changed too much.
With query variable, you would select one of the faces, and let the query variable look for the rest automatically. If you change the geometry, it will automatically update the selections for you. If it fails on a couple and you have to do some reselecting. You do it by selecting one or two of the new faces in query variable, and that's it.
Re: Assembling sub-assemblies
It sounds like the parts in your sub-assemblies aren't constrained (to each other).
If there are no moving parts and everything is in the correct place in your sub-assembly, you can use a "group" constraint.
You also have the option to "lock" a sub-assembly from the top level so that it behaves rigidly (but you should still ensure things are constrained in the assembly to avoid accidentally ending up with things out of place).
Re: Assembling sub-assemblies
Without seeing your document, it sounds like you are using fix in your subassemblies when you should be using group or the fastened mate. Fix only applies to the assembly you are in, so if you bring an assembly that has no groups or mates it will act as if you did nothing to the parts.
