How should I work with parts across part studios?

taylor_kaplan

I'm trying to not reinvent the wheel and just borrow from parts that are publicly available. The problem is that I can't copy shapes or parts from one studio tab into another. This makes it very difficult to design parts around another in a separate tab. What is considered the best practice?

I shouldn't have to draw out a gear every time I want to use one, that's ridiculous.

philip_thomas

@taylor_kaplan

Welcome to Onshape!

There are (like all things in Onshape), several ways to achieve your goals!

To 'copy' a part from a Part Sudio in one document to another you can;

1) If you only need it in one of your assemblies, simply 'insert' and navigate to the source document and select the standard part

2) 'Copy' the entire Part Studio (from the source document) to your clipboard (RMB/copy-to-clipboard) and then paste it into your target document (click on the '+' sign in the BLHC). From there you can
    (a) insert it into one of your assemblies
    (b) build a new (related) part in the same (pasted) Part Studio
    (c) 'Derive' the inserted part into a second Part Studio (already containing the geometry you want to relate to the standard part)

3) If you are using involute gears - you can use the Involute Gear Custom Feature (www.onshape.com/featurescript)

Very doable - I hope this helps

taylor_kaplan

Hi Philip,

Thanks for your in depth answer. I also want to say that I love using your software. My approach which worked well for me was to build an assembly, copy and paste the parts and then do in context editing.

My next question is a little more basic. What is the best practice when you find out your assembly you've built, consisting of multiple parts studios and sub assemblies, is to large for the product you are building and you want to scale it down? Is there such a feature? I don't see a scale part feature in the assembly and I'm afraid to go to each part studio and scale it by had. I saw this as a question back in march 2015 but have not seen an answer to this.

Thanks,

Taylor

philip_thomas

Taylor - i hope that i have correctly understood your question, if not, please let me know.

To scale parts, use the 'Transform' tool.
Once all parts are scaled, the mates in your assembly should all work (at the intermediate step of some parts scaled and some not, some mates may be temporarily unsolvable).

If i was doing this, the first thing i would do is make a version and then make a branch and make all the scale edits on the branch.
If i like the results, i would merge back into main.
If i get into a total pickle (and i haven't made a version on the new branch), i can just delete that branch and try again

You of course dont have to get fancy like that as you can undo anything in Onshape.

Good luck!

taylor_kaplan

Interesting, thanks for your help!

dick_van_der_vaart

Hello Taylor, 
When your working with multi-part studio's you can create parts that are related to each other, if you change a basic dimension all other related parts change also.
Here is a link so you can see what I mean.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/93c0c4dff2c7278d858fd8a4/w/5e8a4ce5a1a33a33a196a1b7/e/2c8a1ca4d971ed5fb94c49a8
In Part Studio 1 you see the featuretree and at the top you Widt and Dept, click edit sketch and change a parameter, and see what happens.
I use the Use command very often.

Have fun