Locking down complex imported assemblies

bill_rayner

I signed up a year ago today (according to a pop-up I got just now) but this is my first day of being fully cut loose from solidworks; I'm on holiday in France, my PC is in Australia and I'm importing complex assemblies hoping to do modifications in Onshape.
I've found that keeping the assembly together is easy; just use the group command, but then tying the group to the origin is a nightmare.
All I want to do is make the machine base horizontal with the origin a fixed distance below the centre of the face of a disc which has a horizontal axis. Takes a minute in SW, but there's no easy way in Onshape. For a start there are no planes in the assembly tab, or any parallel constraint that I can find.
Any suggestions?

brucebartlett

You can also use the triad manipulator to move a part to the origin. Just drag the manipulator by the ball to a snap point on the part then RMB "move to origin" and use the handles to rotate, invert, etc. You could then fix the part or mate with a fasten as @_Dave_described.

If group mated first everything should follow the part.

_Ðave_

@bill_rayner I think that I would use a fasten mate as per vid below. HTH

brucebartlett

You can also use the triad manipulator to move a part to the origin. Just drag the manipulator by the ball to a snap point on the part then RMB "move to origin" and use the handles to rotate, invert, etc. You could then fix the part or mate with a fasten as @_Dave_described.

If group mated first everything should follow the part.

bill_rayner

Thanks Bruce, brilliant!

bill_rayner

On reflection, not so brilliant in complex assemblies. Much time and head scratching is currently required.