How do I line up these cladding boards in an assembly ?

nick_davies

Hi,

I have various cabins comprised of standard parts and am struggling to line up the cladding with the back wall in this example.  https://cad.onshape.com/documents/6d73f4564f0f7e25aef93b39/w/4f62e294c528125ad9c1e74d/e/ac40e598272633285e776946

What you see is the back wall of a small cabin and two boards put more or less in place by hand.  What I need to happen is for the boards to overlap the back wall by exactly 15mm and then to continue down the side and be mirrored on the other side.  I believe I can do this in a part studio but would have to derive the board to do so.  However, I would prefer to do this in the assembly as all our cabins are made up from a library of parts and I want to retain the link to the original board so that I might easily update the cabin in the future.

Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Nick

john_mcclary

only in part studio

owen_sparks

I'd imagine as the boards are a uniform width you could use a layout sketch (with the outline of the floor but with the 15mm overlap included using the offset tool) and then in the assembly use the "pattern along curve tool" to place the boards all in one hit.

Owen S.

john_mcclary

Yea mating these in the assembly is being troublesome. It was taking me 3 tangent mates and a planar mate for each shingle. Which is in-efficient and I've always been wary of tangent mates because they like to flip around at random sometimes and turn your assemblies inside out. (at least in other cad)
It also was not allowing me to slide the shingle to the top of the arc, it would stop about 3 shingles short of the top.

@owen_sparks is right, pattern along curve is made for this.

nick_davies

owen_sparks said:

I'd imagine as the boards are a uniform width you could use a layout sketch (with the outline of the floor but with the 15mm overlap included using the offset tool) and then in the assembly use the "pattern along curve tool" to place the boards all in one hit.

Thanks for the help but I think I'm missing something - there's a pattern along curve tool in assembly?

john_mcclary

only in part studio

nick_davies

john_mcclary said:

only in part studio

Ah well, as I thought. Early days tho', I'm sure I'll figure out a better way of organising my part studios so that I can get where I want.  Thanks for the help.

Ben_

Yes use a curve pattern in a part studio for this. It has taken some time but here is my thought on how to arrange parts in Onshape. If the part is stationary put it in a part studio with what it is bonded to. If it moves put it in a assembly. 

Sometimes words get in our way. A "part" studio is actually a "stationary assembly" where you can make parts in context. A assembly is a interface between part studios that move in relation to each other.  

https://cad.onshape.com/help/#curvepattern.htm?Highlight=replicate

nick_davies

Ben_ said:

If the part is stationary put it in a part studio with what it is bonded to. If it moves put it in a assembly.

Problem is, my parts are not bonded to anything in particular so don't belong in any particular context.  We have a lot of standard, modular components which are assembled in different ways to make products. Many are imported models so are rarely in the same part studio.

Sometimes words get in our way. A "part" studio is actually a "stationary assembly" where you can make parts in context. A assembly is a interface between part studios that move in relation to each other. 

The origin of my problem was trying to place the parts correctly within an assembly in order to preserve the link to the version of the part which is held in a separate document, thus enabling me to seamlessly update the assembly when a new version of the part is produced.  Arranging them in a part studio breaks that link.

Early days for me and I accept that I'm probably not seeing something.  I'll probably end up shaking all the parts out on the floor and starting again with a different organisational structure : )

Ben_

Ok then look up derived part in a part studio https://cad.onshape.com/help/#derived.htm?Highlight=DERIVED you will find it does what you need including version of the derived part handling. However to move the part around is a bit of a pain. In this case you need to create mate connectors to mate the parts properly. I am hoping that Onshape will soon add similar but static mating functionality into the part studios like you see in assemblies. 

With Onshape we are all relatively new at this. I have spent many times shaking all the parts out on the floor, several iterations on a single document in some cases. In the end it is worth it to do that some times.