Welcome to the Onshape forum! Ask questions and join in the discussions about everything Onshape.
First time visiting? Here are some places to start:- Looking for a certain topic? Check out the categories filter or use Search (upper right).
- Need support? Ask a question to our Community Support category.
- Please submit support tickets for bugs but you can request improvements in the Product Feedback category.
- Be respectful, on topic and if you see a problem, Flag it.
If you would like to contact our Community Manager personally, feel free to send a private message or an email.
How to enforce a sketch dimension though a extrude pattern?
w_s856
Member Posts: 44 ✭
This is not really a question in the sense "help me to do exactly this thing here" but rather a question about the proper approach to a design pattern in Onshape.
I am building a battery holder, which will have a platform with holes to put batteries in, and at the bottom there will be small rings to stay vertical. I am doing this mostly to learn Onshape for my home use because there are zillions of similar STLs readily available :)
My problem is the following
- on the one hand, I would like the size of the platform to be <20cm because this is the size of my printer
- on the other hand, I would like this size to be driven by the number of batteries on the x and y axes
On https://cad.onshape.com/documents/c326457a6788bf73c38df747/w/5b33f7580add485dd268c063/e/bef38535b9f96f52a1869489?renderMode=0&uiState=676949ee3c15381b9a47039b I started by creating the slots (this is the lower platform where there will be a small ring in which the battery lands). The number of rings drives the size of the platform, the last ring is tangent to the edge of the platform.
This approach is a nightmare when creating i) the platform and then ii) the 55 rings.
I would prefer to create a single ring, extrude it, and then make a linear pattern of the extrusion.
The problem is that I do not know how to constrain the size of the platform based on the final number of extruded rings. The more I think about that, the more it looks like a catch-22 problem because the sketch of the platform is before the extrude and pattern (or maybe it is not a problem, I do not know).
Ultimately I will force the size of the platform manually after a few calculations — my intent with this discussion is to understand if my approach makes sense, and if not what is the proper one (the one I did in the sketch above I guess)
Comments
I think you could do this by making the base its own feature and then just have the base dimensions calculated from the number of rings.
Also, check out Linear Pattern Plus:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/1196579d97167d7a348652a9/v/1c9b35be187e7992fe9815d7/e/3e9783cad47053c2abb99ce0