Extrude in one beam using same part multiple times in assembly : how to position the extrudes

marcel_brouillet

Hello.
I prepare a part (say a tile or a board) and a beam in the part studio. At that stage, I can draw them tangent and prepare a hole in the part, extruding it also through the beam. When I bring my part and my beam initially in an assembly it is fine. But I intend to assemble many identical parts on the same beam. I insert my part many times, and place each part adjacent to the previous part using a connector. They are in place, but the beam has only one pre-drilled hole, under the first part I assembled.

How can I get the holes in the beam in the right spots under each part ?

1. I could duplicate my part in the part studio, essentially doing the assembly there, and then have each extrude affect my beam. But that ruins the beauty of single-part design that is then re-used many times in the assembly.
2. I could geometrically infer the drill positions from the part dimensions, presuming I know how many the beam will hold, and use "equal" constraints to place geometrical points. But if I go back and change the dimensions of the part, it will screw-up my hole positions, and I possibly can fit a different number of parts on my beam.

I wish I could just extrude after assembly (like having a drill in real life), or tell the extrude that it should extend in the next part whatever it will be assembled to later. Sadly I missed that option.

What is the best way to solve my problem ?

Thank you.
Marcel.

TimRice

I believe you could solve this problem by creating the entire assembly in a part studio. You could still have the individual parts (beams, tiles, etc) in separate docs and use the derived tool to bring them in to a new part studio. This will then allow you to perform operations to the parts that will not affect the originals.

We are working on in context editing in assemblies so that could be a solution for you as well once released.

Jake_Rosenfeld

Hi Marcel,

Option 1 and 2 could both work.  If the parts are identical and adjacent it sounds like you can use a linear pattern to quickly duplicate the part along the beam (you can use a part pattern to duplicate the part and a face or feature pattern to duplicate the holes).  

If you are concerned about having multiple instances of your part in the Part Studio, you can just pattern the holes and then use the Replicate tool in the assembly to very quickly replicate your part into all of the matching holes.

I wouldn't worry too much about having multiple identical parts in the same studio though; if you want to change the part before the pattern you can always roll back to before the pattern, make changes, and they will apply when you roll forward to the pattern. +1 for parametric modeling!

https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/linearpattern.htm
https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/replicate.htm
See rollback bar: https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/feature_list.htm

3dcad

Jake_Rosenfeld said:

..

I wouldn't worry too much about having multiple identical parts in the same studio though; ..

How about parts list (BOM) ? It would show many similar parts with qty 1..

Jake_Rosenfeld

Great point @3dcad ! Maybe Patterning just the holes and using assembly replicate is better practice.