Struggling to find correct mate for sliding part

murray_1

The OS mate concept uses one mate and only one mate between any 2 parts in an assembly. So how do I mate the sensor to the bracket so that it is held in the right orientation whilst being free to slide?

I have 2 slots and 2 bolt holes. In SW, I think would select a coincident mate to place the sensor on the face of the bracket, then a parallel mate to align the body along the bracket, then a slot mate to confine the sensor bolt hole to the slot length. I'd then have a sensor that could slide back and forth, confined by the slot.

The sensor body is not the same width as the bracket, like most real things, so aligning an edge of the sensor to an edge of the bracket would require offsets to be calculated. What is the approved method for getting a similar outcome? Do I need to devise a mate point on the back of the sensor and another (a line?) on the bracket between (in the mid pint etc) the existing slots? I believe the sliding mate doesn't have limits (yet) which I can live with.

This takes a different way of thinking about mates and assemblies and I suspect will throw a lot of people like me who are used to removing degrees of freedom one mate at a time. Presumably this is why there is talk of needing to devise mate points at part design time?

murray_1

In the screenshot, I have made a slot mate between one of the bolt holes and one of the slots but of course this fails miserably to confine the sensor beyond holding said bolt hole in line with that slot.

jakeramsley

Hi Murray,

Pin-slot is a mate that is order dependent and orientation dependent.  The axis that the pin will slide along is the red axis (the x-axis) of the slider mate connector.  I would suggest making an explicit mate connector in your slot, with the red axis parallel to the walls to use to define this.  And then when you do a pin-slot mate, select the pin first, the slot second and then make sure the red axis (the x-axis) is aligned or anti-aligned.  At this point the pin should be allowed to slide along the red axis of the slot.

I'm attaching some pictures which I hope makes it clear

brucebartlett

Thanks @JakeRamsley I haven't used that mate yet either. I will have to try it out to get my head around it. Maybe an animated gif might make it easier to understand. Bruce 

brucebartlett

Just had a play with the Slot Mate. Is there any plan to put limits on the float?

@JakeRamsley  Also a bit confusing as to which mate connector drives the direction of float. Is it the second in the list? Is there a refer to a help file?

caradon

If you click the mate connector in the dialog, it should highlight the part to which it is attached. No?

Dries

murray_1

Well, I added mate connectors to both parts and then used the slot mate in the assembly. That appeared to assemble the sensor to the bracket as intended (first screenshot). However, the sensor isn't held parallel to the edge of the bracket. After grabbing the sensor, you can see that the red axes of the 2 connectors are no longer aligned (second screenshot). However, when you think about it, it all works as it's supposed to.

Then I changed the mate type to a sliding mate (third pic). I had to go back to the part connectors and realign them so that the primary blue axis was in the direction of the slot. Job done.

So I was using the wrong mate. The difference between the slot and sliding mates is that the sliding mate maintains alignment (one less degree of freedom).

Configuring and positioning mating connectors in the parts is the key to making mates work without having to calculate messy offsets. It requires a slightly different thought process and choosing the right mates might take a little consideration.

jakeramsley

BruceBartlett said:

Just had a play with the Slot Mate. Is there any plan to put limits on the float?

Yes.

BruceBartlett said:

@JakeRamsley  Also a bit confusing as to which mate connector drives the direction of float. Is it the second in the list? Is there a refer to a help file?

Sorry for the late reply, this is something that has changed and is changing so I had to double check the current behavior.  Right now the direction of the float is attached to the first mate connector in the list, the pin.  The direction that it picks is the x-axis of the pin at the initial position (seen by either when the mate is created or by choosing 'Reset' in the context menu on the mate).  As the pin can rotate, this is why I suggest making the x-axis of the slot and the pin to be aligned/anti-aligned to reference going forward.

DriesVervoort_Caradon said:

If you click the mate connector in the dialog, it should highlight the part to which it is attached. No?

No need to click, simply highlighting the mate connector in the dialog will cross-highlight the associated part.

brucebartlett

Thanks @JakeRamsley was thinking about raising some tickets on this one but will hold off if change is coming, save you guy the unnecessary paperwork. 

Hopefully you can make the whole mate connector, mating thing a bit more user friendly, I find I have to think pretty hard when approaching an assembly, I'm sure heaps of UX testing is going to try and sort some of these issues out.

Look forward to some changes rolling in.