Create a rotated plane

AsaEE

I am trying to create a plane that is coplanar with the right plane, but rotated by a fixed angle about X. Most of sketches for this project are on the right plane but rotated. This means that none of the vertical/horizontal constraints actually work. Currently, I am defining every sketch from a mate connector and realigning it. However, it would be much nicer to select a plane for all these sketches to avoid needing to redo the same realignment every time. 

This seems like it should be easy, but I haven't been able to figure it out yet. In every attempt, when I go to create the plane, it aligns with the coordinate system rather than whatever features I was using to create it.

eric_pesty

@AsaEE

The "multi-mate connector" feature lets you have "construction" mate connectors and might be the ticket. It does a lot of other things that the "base" mate connector really should be able to do...

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/5d8da63844bedebe5cff72b1/v/a2f8d68037aff39e9d20f7a1/e/11dcab8f665add80b9aced0a

steve_shubin

@AsaEE

MultiMateConnector is not a native featurescript. As such, the folks at Onshape have not enabled it to act as an implicit mate where you could create it on the fly within a sketch.

On the other hand, MultiMateConnector is a very powerful tool, where you don't need a sketch or a part to place it anywhere you want, at any orientation, within 3D space. And once you do this, it can be derived into other part studios without creating any sketches or parts.

Maybe you could place your MultiMateConnector first, and then build your master sketch around it.

But if you start with a master sketch, you can certainly use MultiMateConnector to attach itself to whatever part of the sketch you want, where it can be derived into other part studios.

Aside from it lacking the implicit nature, there is one other thing I found that it is lacking when you compare it to the native plane tool or native mate connector. And that is that it cannot create a three point plane. At least I haven't found a way to do it yet. I can get the centerpoint of the MultiMateConnector on plane with the three points. I just can't get the main Z axis normal to those three points. I could approximate the normal to part of it, but not get it exactly. But other than that, it's very powerful. You could do things that you couldn’t do otherwise.

A few minutes ago I found out that MultiMateConnector is capable of also doing 3 Point Planes.
SEE THE POST BELOW

Great tool

NeilCooke

The thing to do is to create a mate connector feature (rather than on-the-fly in the sketch dialog) and use that as a reference.

AsaEE

Thanks Neil. I was hoping there was an alternate solution as the mate connector requires a part to own it, meaning I can't simply define it in a master sketch and derive it into every subsequent part studio. Nor can I define it in each part studio before making my first part, so at least one sketch/part studio will need to be make without using it. But this is certainly better than redefining it on the fly for every sketch, so it should still speed up my process a bit.

eric_pesty

@AsaEE

The "multi-mate connector" feature lets you have "construction" mate connectors and might be the ticket. It does a lot of other things that the "base" mate connector really should be able to do...

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/5d8da63844bedebe5cff72b1/v/a2f8d68037aff39e9d20f7a1/e/11dcab8f665add80b9aced0a

steve_shubin

@AsaEE

MultiMateConnector is not a native featurescript. As such, the folks at Onshape have not enabled it to act as an implicit mate where you could create it on the fly within a sketch.

On the other hand, MultiMateConnector is a very powerful tool, where you don't need a sketch or a part to place it anywhere you want, at any orientation, within 3D space. And once you do this, it can be derived into other part studios without creating any sketches or parts.

Maybe you could place your MultiMateConnector first, and then build your master sketch around it.

But if you start with a master sketch, you can certainly use MultiMateConnector to attach itself to whatever part of the sketch you want, where it can be derived into other part studios.

Aside from it lacking the implicit nature, there is one other thing I found that it is lacking when you compare it to the native plane tool or native mate connector. And that is that it cannot create a three point plane. At least I haven't found a way to do it yet. I can get the centerpoint of the MultiMateConnector on plane with the three points. I just can't get the main Z axis normal to those three points. I could approximate the normal to part of it, but not get it exactly. But other than that, it's very powerful. You could do things that you couldn’t do otherwise.

A few minutes ago I found out that MultiMateConnector is capable of also doing 3 Point Planes.
SEE THE POST BELOW

Great tool

steve_shubin

@AsaEE

Thought came to mind a little while ago. Tried it and sure enough, found out MultiMateConnector is ALSO CAPABLE of doing 3 Point Planes. AMAZING TOOL MultiMateConnector is !!

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/7c98eeba414f8f232cc74633/w/4284c0b456c6116855e9fff2/e/39d8a34de0bea26ef7d53dd6

matthew_stacy

@AsaEE, an on-the-fly mate connector seemed to work well for me.  I did it coplanar with the top plane (rather than side), but it illustrates the point.  Does this method satisfy your intent?

AsaEE

@eric_pesty @steve_shubin The MultiMateConnector was exactly what I was looking for! I'll need to dig into that so much more to understand everything it can do, but the Construction option is honestly all I needed to work for this use case.

@matthew_stacy The on-the-fly mate connectors had been what I was using and work great for limited usage. I am building a lot of parts from a single master sketch that all have this rotation offset, so I probably had 50+ sketches build from on-the-fly mate connectors across multiple part studios. This is both annoying from a time perspective and also makes my design a lot more error prone if I select different features to define from. With the MultiMateConnector that was suggested, I can define this feature once in the master sketch and have more confidence that if I need to change that offset angle or delete certain sketches, all my parts will update correctly. It is just a much better workflow for master driven design.

Thanks all for the help.