How Can I Arbitrarily Union All Parts?

Kyler_Walker

Hello.  I have a part pattern that has an instance count that is dependent of a configuration variable.  After the pattern, I want to do a union of all the parts in the part studio.  Is there a way I can easily union all parts, similar to "Merge with all." Thanks!

_anton

If the parts can be booleaned together, the pattern feature should be able to do that for you. Else, you'd want to make a composite part, though, AFAIK, you'd need a custom feature for that.

Kyler_Walker

@_anton Oops!  I thought I was doing a part pattern, but it turns out I was doing a feature pattern of the extrude that made the patterned part.  Thanks!  

S1mon

The first question would be: is there a way to pattern features which will merge things automatically instead? 

There are some custom features out there which will Boolean/Add all the parts in a studio or all the parts created by selected features. I can't find them at the moment.
@GregBrown ?

jelte_steur814

@S1mon
indeed @GregBrown brown has an awesome and rather simple feature for this in Beta: (auto-boolean)
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/20afd0071b1fd882855e31f3/v/a861552f5b8dcff963345bfe/e/fc706ce0880ab89b509732af

Kyler_Walker

@S1mon
Interestingly, a feature pattern of my Extrude feature returns different results depending on whether I choose Add or New.  With the New option, the result is what I want.  I think this is what led me to think I was doing a part pattern when it was really a feature pattern.  I don't know why a feature pattern of an Extrude Add gives a different result than a Part Pattern with the Add option.

@jelte_steur814
Thanks!  I will save that one for future use.

rick_randall

I encourage you to refresh your knowledge of patterns, and how they work in the self paced help courses - part pattern and feature pattern work differently, "part pattern" patterns the whole part, while "feature pattern" patterns just one, or a series of features that you choose (not the whole part). Good luck

Kyler_Walker

rick_randall said:

I encourage you to refresh your knowledge of patterns, and how they work in the self paced help courses - part pattern and feature pattern work differently, "part pattern" patterns the whole part, while "feature pattern" patterns just one, or a series of features that you choose (not the whole part). Good luck

I think I have decent understanding of the different types of patterns.  I just was mistaken about the type of pattern I was using when I wrote my post.  A feature pattern of an Extrude New returns a similar looking result to a part pattern.  What confuses me is why a feature pattern of an Extrude New behaves completely differently than an Extrude Add.