SubAssemblies losing mating info. Are we doing this correctly?

lb_corney

I'm relatively new to OnShape.  I'm working with a team of folks on a volunteer Covid-19 volunteer project .  We're open source and this seems a great opportunity to learn and use the platform.   I understand from this posting (and comment from philip_thomas ) that importing assemblies from Solidworks is problematic.  I understand and I can work with that.  

• Subassembly created in Solidworks and imported to OnShape
• Solidworks: Pack and Go, Zip, Flatten, arrives with all mating info as described.
• in Onshape, fix big part (electronic perf board), add mates (a microphone element), group pieces together.  
• Part looks good, pieces react as expected. You can spin the microphone but you can't translate it in any axis. That's fine. 

Part looks like this: 



Now go to create a final assy.  There will be lots of parts and components here.  Import the Microphone/perfboard subassembly.   This didn't work out so well.  Even though the mate info was created within OnShape, its all gone again.  Am I doing this right?  


Ouch.  Many thanks for any assistance you might offer in understanding how to create (and keep) mates within subassemblies within OnShape. Note, here is our open source folder for the project.  And anyone interested in volunteering a little bit of (CAD) time, we always welcome volunteers.   

thanks, LB

NeilCooke

It looks like you are inserting the individual parts again, rather than the subassembly (with mates) you created previously. In this case there will be no mates because they are just two random parts. Go to the Assemblies tab in the Insert dialog to add your existing assembly.

lb_corney

Yes, that's exactly what I did. I finally figured this out after four hours or so.

I was importing the newly created subassembly (into my final assembly document) under the default tab "Part Studio" and not the correct "Assemblies" . 

In hind sight, I would have wished Import "Assemblies" is the default behavior and not "Part Studio", but I suspect I'm not the only new person knocked flat by this.  I'd be curious to understand the Onshape UI design decision there. 

thank you for your reply.  spot on!

NeilCooke

I think the design decision is probably that, in general, more parts than subassemblies will be added to an assembly. What is confusing to many is the concept of a Part Studio that may sometimes look like a subassembly depending upon how many parts are in it.