How to place a part exactly horizontal in an assembly.

lars_andersson

I have missed how to place parts exactly level in an assembly so they come aligned to vertical and horizontal in the drawing.
Now I rotate them so they look okay by eyesight, I do not think the parts snap to exact position.
There seems to be no planes in assembly?

matthew_menard

Will using a mate connector to the origin work for you?  Like so:



The block was originally rotated randomly in space and using the revolute mate connector in the direction I wanted got it back aligned with the origin.  I'm assuming the revolute mate connector aligns the axis initially, but may be wrong and I just got lucky.  Now, how this movement will affect the rest of your assembly, I can't say.  At least the undo button works well though.

peter_hall

I would use the fasten command to bring two parts together in the assembly then use offset to offset them apart. you can offset in any of the three directions x,y,z by a dimension of your choice.

matthew_menard

Will using a mate connector to the origin work for you?  Like so:



The block was originally rotated randomly in space and using the revolute mate connector in the direction I wanted got it back aligned with the origin.  I'm assuming the revolute mate connector aligns the axis initially, but may be wrong and I just got lucky.  Now, how this movement will affect the rest of your assembly, I can't say.  At least the undo button works well though.

andrew_troup

The (presumably temporary) lack of planes makes it important to position the first part carefully.
When you insert it from the part studio, it will come in orthogonal to the viewing axes, and you need to "Fix" it.

refer this video
https://www.onshape.com/learn/essential-training-series#!lesson-number=4&title=assembly-basics

starting about 1m

Any parts you mate to it will automatically be horizontal and vertical to the standard view directions.

lars_andersson

matthew_menard said:

Will using a mate connector to the origin work for you?  Like so:



The block was originally rotated randomly in space and using the revolute mate connector in the direction I wanted got it back aligned with the origin.  I'm assuming the revolute mate connector aligns the axis initially, but may be wrong and I just got lucky.  Now, how this movement will affect the rest of your assembly, I can't say.  At least the undo button works well though.

Exactly to the point. Works great for me. I did not suspect that the origin had a mate connector.

andrew_troup

@matthew_menard

Great mate tip, mate! (we cross-posted, which is why I didn't acknowledge in my earlier post)

Presumably in most cases a "Fastened" mate to the origin would be the most desirable choice ?