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Align Assembly Part, Mates not up to this scenario
MakotoNinja
Member Posts: 4 EDU
Aloha Folks,
I've come into a situation where I'd like to be able to align a part in an assembly based off the geometry of the other parts in the assembly and it doesn't appear that any of the available Mates are able to accomplish this.
I have made an oversimplified Document that demonstrates the situation (the actual document is much more involved). In this case it is a thickened wire frame (think PVC pipe and fittings) of a stretched tetrahedron where the angles going up to the 'tip' are different than the equal lateral triangle base. All the vertices are like corner fittings that can be connected via pipes along the edges. I have a single Part for the 3 vertices of the equal lateral triangle base and another Part for the 'tip' vertex.
Setting up the equal lateral triangle base is straight forward as I am able to use predetermined length cylinders and Fasten Mates to connect to the 3 instances of the base corner fitting. I planned on deriving the length for the vertical pipes by measuring the distance between base and tip fittings after positioning the tip fitting using 2 or more Slider Mates, thinking that their independent Slide axes would position the Part at the particular point in 3D space where they intersect, but this is not the case. It appears that the Mates fail when using more than a single slider on the same Part instance.
I don't know if I am missing something (I probably am) but I feel like there could be something like a Mate that can position a Part using multiple vectors.
I've come into a situation where I'd like to be able to align a part in an assembly based off the geometry of the other parts in the assembly and it doesn't appear that any of the available Mates are able to accomplish this.
I have made an oversimplified Document that demonstrates the situation (the actual document is much more involved). In this case it is a thickened wire frame (think PVC pipe and fittings) of a stretched tetrahedron where the angles going up to the 'tip' are different than the equal lateral triangle base. All the vertices are like corner fittings that can be connected via pipes along the edges. I have a single Part for the 3 vertices of the equal lateral triangle base and another Part for the 'tip' vertex.
Setting up the equal lateral triangle base is straight forward as I am able to use predetermined length cylinders and Fasten Mates to connect to the 3 instances of the base corner fitting. I planned on deriving the length for the vertical pipes by measuring the distance between base and tip fittings after positioning the tip fitting using 2 or more Slider Mates, thinking that their independent Slide axes would position the Part at the particular point in 3D space where they intersect, but this is not the case. It appears that the Mates fail when using more than a single slider on the same Part instance.
I don't know if I am missing something (I probably am) but I feel like there could be something like a Mate that can position a Part using multiple vectors.
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Best Answer
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lougallo
Member, Moderator, Onshape Employees, Developers, csevp Posts: 2,004 
Use cylindrical mates instead. Two will do. Check out your example doc.Lou Gallo / PD/UX - Support - Community / Onshape, Inc.5
Answers
At any rate, thank you. Looks like it works well.
The object being positioned is a Sub-Assembly with it's own Mates which may be causing the failure...