Advanced Assembly Mate question

dave_sartory

I had a general question with a couple (hopefully) minimal examples.  Is there a way (or should there be, even) a way to have what I'm going to describe as "conditional mates"?   For example, two gears apart from each other that have a linear relationship and turn ONLY when they physically meet?  Two of my students are trying some complex projects:  a rubiks cube and a basic auto differential.  I don't even know where to start in answering this question.

Thank you all for your time!

Matt_Shields

Onshape mates and mate relations don't detect physical contact, so they won't provide any kind of conditional behavior out of the box.  That said, there are some clever ways to fake it.  If you haven't seen it, check out this amazing Rubik's Cube animation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMtNDocbJKE

jan_bouwman

Hi, I recently made a compilation of animations I made using the above principle. To show what is possible. I am currently in the process of making a document explaining how I did one of them. 

https://youtu.be/Llsd4rxHDV8?si=8MzuwKggTRR8ylBE

Matt_Shields

That is pretty amazing.  Nice work.  This part knocked me over.

jan_bouwman

Thank you!
It’s very satisfying to see when a plan comes together.
But it was a lot of work…