Radial mate connectors

jon_smirl

I can't figure out how to make a pie and then have the pieces of the pie expand out radially on mate connectors. My goal is to allow an exploded view of the object. Can this be done?  I need a mate connector down the centerline of the piece but there is none.  Can this work on a round shell (ie no tip of the pie piece to work with)?

traveler_hauptman

@malay_kumar You are right. Good catch. I tried that and it did not work, but I was trying to select the origin in the feature tree instead of in the graphics window.

brucebartlett

add your mate connectors to the sketch in the part studio, you may need a construction line for this, then link the new mate connector to the part you want it to go with. 

traveler_hauptman

EDIT: As malay pointed out, you can place mate connectors at the origin in assemblies. No need to create the hack part I mention below...

Working with non-part entities in Assemblies is not implemented yet. (You want to move your parts relative to some center point.)

You can hack around this by creating a small part to be at the center.

Once you have that, for each direction you want to explode you can attach a mate connector to the "center" and a mate connector to the exploding part, aligned in the direction you want. This will work even with no pie 'tip'.

So if you have 5 pie pieces, you will have 5 mate connectors attached to the "center" part, each rotated to face the direction you want, and 1 mate connector each for the pie pieces.

jon_smirl

I was able to get this working by creating mate connectors in part studio along the axis I needed.  I was trying to do it in the assembly and it is is not possible to do there without having previously creating the mates in the part studio.

brucebartlett

On your slider mate you could set limits.

malay_kumar

Mate connector can be defined using the assembly origin. That should work in this case. 

traveler_hauptman

@malay_kumar You are right. Good catch. I tried that and it did not work, but I was trying to select the origin in the feature tree instead of in the graphics window.