Cannot see custom mates in assembly view

neil_clayton

Happy new year

I'm confused!  Can't see custom mate connects from a PS within my assembly.

e.g: in the PS named "Power Base", I've three MC's defined (FN2070, Fan, Center of lower).  Yet these don't show up under the part witin the part studio.
What am I missing?  I see *other* MC's showing up from the same PS, but not these ones. 


https://cad.onshape.com/documents/15e657b3c3df5f459a2b4376/w/76591c58cb2d7e4ef9abf235/e/f42c9a4b2b10ce730972a7ee

john_mcclary

I was about to check for that, sometimes features like boolean or transform can output a new body.

keep moving the mate connector up in the tree until it happens again. then you will find which feature was causing this.
for example: if it is a boolean union, then the first selection on the list of bodies will be the "main body' so make sure lower base is the top of the list.

because you have 96 features on the tree, be careful, by changing the main body early in the tree, you can accidentally break subsequent features, and may even need to replace the part in the assemblies. If that is the case, it would be better off just moving the mate connector feature instead as you did. 

This is one of those Onshape quirks you may need to pay attention to as your modeling. Bodies seemingly come in and out of existence in a part studio, which can trip up some newer users. The same thing does happen in other cad, but they take the entire file in one gulp when inserting, so it just breaks assembly mates. We just take the resulting body, which is much more noticeable when it gets replaced in the studio.
  
hope this helps.

neil_clayton

If I move the creation of the MC down in the PS feature list, it appears in the assembly.  Are MC's are only exposed in some circumstances?

john_mcclary

I was about to check for that, sometimes features like boolean or transform can output a new body.

keep moving the mate connector up in the tree until it happens again. then you will find which feature was causing this.
for example: if it is a boolean union, then the first selection on the list of bodies will be the "main body' so make sure lower base is the top of the list.

because you have 96 features on the tree, be careful, by changing the main body early in the tree, you can accidentally break subsequent features, and may even need to replace the part in the assemblies. If that is the case, it would be better off just moving the mate connector feature instead as you did. 

This is one of those Onshape quirks you may need to pay attention to as your modeling. Bodies seemingly come in and out of existence in a part studio, which can trip up some newer users. The same thing does happen in other cad, but they take the entire file in one gulp when inserting, so it just breaks assembly mates. We just take the resulting body, which is much more noticeable when it gets replaced in the studio.
  
hope this helps.

neil_clayton

Ah. I think I see. The new body would have the same name (depending on how the boolean op were configured), so I probably missed seeing that. The part was still in the tree; with same name, but it's actually a new part so old MC no longer owned by it. Makes sense. It'd be kinda nice if there was a "hey did you really mean to eat these MC's along the way" list, especially if they are defined and then not referenced by later features. But then; perhaps its plain better and more self-documenting if I just make sure to create my MC's designed for easy assembly at the end of my feature lists....  ta!

gary_owen

I have found another reason for this.  It is possible for the ower part to set as a plane rather than the solid.  I'm not sure how I managed that; possibly because the location geometry was set by a sketch.  Once, I changed the owner part to the solid, the mate connector appeared in the assembly.