How to create a slot in Onshape

traveler_hauptman

Just a quick tip that I think is fun and useful, especially for those new to Onshape.

Slots are needed in a lot of situations and can be sketched a lot of ways. If you pick the wrong way, it's tedious and will have you cursing if you have to do more than one.

Here's the quickest and easiest way I have found. 

1) Draw a rectangle where you want the slot. If the slot is not horizontal or vertical then you will need to delete the horizontal constraint that Onshape adds to the rectangle. 

2) Dimension the rectangle with the slot width and center-to-center length.

3) Draw a circle on each end of the slot/rectangle using the automatic constraints. (hover over the center of the rectangle line segment to get the automatic midpoint constraint, click to start the circle, hover over the end of the line to get the automatic endpoint constraint, click to end the circle).

Done!

That's it. No arcs, no lines, no tangent constraints. 

Onshape handles overlapping contours pretty well but there is a bug that requires a workaround in some cases. If the circles overlap each other Onshape will create an island, use the trim tool to delete one of the overlapping segments. If you are fastidious, use the trim tool to delete all the internal segments, but this is only cosmetic and not necessary. 

Here's the example in action: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/3153ae4573de436ebaf2f28e/w/1d4852760b65401a926a7476/e/4587c5457c394b529c198dcb

If you have other favorite approaches, post them here.

_Ðave_

@Traveler_Hauptman Well done can't imagine an simpler/faster way.

jakeramsley

If you are afraid of circles overlapping, you can use a tangent arc instead.  Select the line towards the vertex you want the tangent arc to come off and connect to the other vertex.  This won't create the overlap.

traveler_hauptman

@jakeramsley  That's an interesting thought. You would first need to delete the ends of the rectangle where the arcs go because Onshape does not handle the necessary corner cases with arc creation yet. 

_Ðave_

I just tried and Actually you don't have to delete the ends of the rectangle at all.
thanks, Jake

jakeramsley

Traveler_Hauptman said:

@jakeramsley  That's an interesting thought. You would first need to delete the ends of the rectangle where the arcs go because Onshape does not handle the necessary corner cases with arc creation yet. 

I'm a little confused what you mean here.  If you have tangent arc selected and select a line (not the end-point), you will start an arc that is tangent to that line from the nearest end-point of that line.

traveler_hauptman

Huh, didn't know that and had not considered trying to start an arc by clicking in a different place than where I wanted it to start.

You guys should add that info to the help!

christopher_owens

Great opportunity to use Copy Sketch and save it somewhere! Most slots/punches I have used are Width x Length so I like to dimension them that way and have "cross hairs" to orient. Also only one sketch region. @traveler_hauptman  & @jakeramsley

christopher_owens

Actually this one works better as I removed the Horizontal and Vertical from the cross hairs and then made them Perpendicular.



Now I can grab one of the line endpoints and "rotate" the slot close to where I want.

daniel_hooglandt

Do you know how one draws a groove/slot on a circular object, going all the way around? 

Jake_Rosenfeld

@daniel_hooglandt You could try sketching the 2d profile of the slot, then doing a Revolve with the "remove" option.
https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/revolve.htm

Sunkmail

Wouldn't it be just as easy to use the 'Slot' command?





Just draw a line where you want the center of the slot and go.

Jake_Rosenfeld

@Sunkmail The majority of this thread is from before we had a slot feature (released late September 2015)