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Can you lock / fully define a sketch, combine sketch entities, or import an un-editable sketch?
joseph_ashe031
Member Posts: 3 ✭
I can't find an answer anywhere and have viewed similar posts with the top solution being 'this feature isn't / will never be implemented'; Maybe someone can still offer a solution to my problem. This is also my first post, and I've read the checklist but I'm sorry if something isn't right.
To start: I pulled this female HDMI CAD model and modeled its face through the 'use' tool:
HDMI Female.STEP | HDMI Female (onshape.com)
For my job, I would copy paste this sketch over and 'transform' it to be centered on the back face of my model. There's no problem here, I would go about modeling the front face etc etc.
The problem arises when I use my model as a template and change the geometry (ie making it wider by longer extrusion).
It becomes uncentered because the transform tool imposes no constraints. Transforming is easy however setting constraints for a template-model to avoid transforming every single time makes significantly more sense.
I would like to have it remain centered between changing geometry; to do this with constraints I need to dimension everything, which usually isn't a problem however becomes really nasty with this sketch / having many arcs.
[The 2nd pic is: offset .01" outward, the top and corners are construct and I extended it to a surface (the only issue is left/right centering)]
A potential workaround could be to base my model around the midplane, but that's only a workaround for this specific model and doesn't solve the initial problem.
Why is there not a way to lock entities in a sketch in relation with each other (fully-define), to convert multiple sketch entities into a single and easily maneuverable shape, or a way to import an uneditable sketch (or only have it be editable in the parent file)? These are mainly rhetorical as I can imagine it's probably a headache to code out.
Am I missing something? I haven't looked but maybe there exists a downloadable tool from the community. Thanks for any input.
Answers
Some people like to do this sort of thing as an in context assembly reference. My preference would be to use derive to place the connector part into your housing. If you’re going to make the same cutout over and over, I would model the clearance in the connector part studio. Either as a sketch or a surface or a part body. Then you can just derive that into the housing and use it to make the same clearance hole over and over in whatever locations you need. If you decide that the clearance needs to be adjusted, that can be updated in the connector part studio and then updated everywhere.