Assembly pattern

lucas_johnson223

Hi all, 
I'm working on an idea for an extrusion framed drawer system and am trying to find the best way to pattern the drawers.
Here's the document I'm working out of.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/6768564b80c455eb75b34f4d/w/cfc164414c1ad9d47fd7abeb/e/025a26eb0d5d014d8d157129?renderMode=0&uiState=623b09bcbb321c2c632b3ed0

I had 2 ideas, neither of which I could get to work.
1. I tried creating a pattern of the drawer subassembly, but it didn't work because I'd like to be able to move each drawer individually. I didn't realize all the subassembly mates get locked in place once it gets patterned.

2. Then I tried making a pattern of the mate connectors owned by the frame so that I could replicate the drawer subassembly using the replicate feature, but I couldn't select the mate connectors. 
Is the quickest solution in this case to just insert each drawer subassembly and mate them individually?
Thanks!

eric_pesty

The replicate feature should be able to do what you want, the key is that you will need a pattern of "reference" geometry (i.e. of whatever you are mating the first drawer to). For example if you had a hole in the part at each location where your are showing your mate connector and mated the first drawer to the bottom hole, the replicate should insert a drawer for every hole.

eric_pesty

You could put maybe a sketch (although I'm not sure replicate can use a sketch for the input but a surface with the holes in it should work and mate to that).
If you create configurations in the part studio to vary the hole spacing and number of holes, then you can drive that configuration from the assembly and the the replicate will populate the drawers. If you use configuration variables you can make it "continuously adjustable".

eric_pesty

The replicate feature should be able to do what you want, the key is that you will need a pattern of "reference" geometry (i.e. of whatever you are mating the first drawer to). For example if you had a hole in the part at each location where your are showing your mate connector and mated the first drawer to the bottom hole, the replicate should insert a drawer for every hole.

lucas_johnson223

That works. I was kind of hoping not to have to create "dummy" geometry, because in reality this would be 9090 extrusion and would not have any feature like that, just T-SLot nuts in the right location. Also, what would be the best way to be able to configure the # of drawers and drawer spacing in the assembly?
Thanks!

eric_pesty

You could put maybe a sketch (although I'm not sure replicate can use a sketch for the input but a surface with the holes in it should work and mate to that).
If you create configurations in the part studio to vary the hole spacing and number of holes, then you can drive that configuration from the assembly and the the replicate will populate the drawers. If you use configuration variables you can make it "continuously adjustable".