How do you section a cylinder?

gerald_comeau

I'm in Fundamentals 5: OnShape Assemblies - Mating Assembly Components, Exercise: Basic Assembly, Slides 10 & 11
There is a Note with Slide 10 in the instructions that says, " The Cylinder and ORings have been sectioned for clarity."  I can see why.  I am trying to mate the plunger and the cylinder. I have no difficulty finding the connector for the plunger but have a problem which seems to be with the connector in the cylinder.  Although, 
I have mated the plunger and the cylinder the plunger appears to be in the wrong position. 

As a consequence when I proceed to slide 11, I am unable to solve the 40 mm and 0 mm requirements for Z axis. This is why I have asked about the sectioning the cylinder and ORings for clarity, as perhaps lack of clarity is the problem. 

philip_thomas

https://learn.onshape.com/learn/article/section-views-of-cylindrical-parts

This is why we write this stuff!

gerald_comeau

I've spent more time studying and practicing Mating Assemblies since I posted, above.  I still have problems with this exercise and want to study still more on my own. I may come back with another question later. 

john_hackington

Hi @gerald_comeau !

To section the cylinder, it means turning the "Section View" on.

You can toggle it under the View cube drop down menu, right at the bottom of the menu:



After that, the system will ask you to choose a plane from which the Sectioned plane will be parallel to. I chose one of the hexagonal sides in this case



After that, you can drag the triangular arrow to adjust the plane at which it cuts, to get the Sectioned view that you desire:




I understand the difficulty sometimes in selecting the exact mate connector too. I'm not too familiar in this aspect myself, but perhaps others in the forum more experienced could provide some tips on how to make the desired selection easier.

One thing that I think might help would be to scroll in to zoom in to the desired area when making the selection, as finer control is possible with the enlarged region. We can scroll out to zoom out after the selection is done.

Another general suggestion, for the forum, is to just copy and paste in the URL of the document that you're working on:




You've gave very clear description on which chapter and slide in the Learning Pathway that you've encountered your problem, but I believe for most of us in the forum, we're already quite disconnected from that material as we went through it very long ago.

Providing an URL of the actual document that you're working on will enable us to jump right in to help you with the specific problem that you're facing, and it is also easier for us to make examples in another tab in that document itself to illustrate anything to you.

Hope you're steadily overcoming the roadblocks you've encountered in the Learning Pathway, and I believe you'll certainly get a better grasp the more you practise it.

billy2

Do like @john_hackington says, or possibly take the short cut.

I key in shift-x, pick cylinder top, then rotate section 90°:

Also, I'm constantly dragging the base of the arrow to change the section location:


To modify a section, just click on a sectioned face, and move the arrow's base:

philip_thomas

https://learn.onshape.com/learn/article/section-views-of-cylindrical-parts

This is why we write this stuff!