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How do I rotate an object?
andreas_kurka
Member Posts: 8 ✭✭
Now, I'm really, really struggling with this. It's so easy, yet it turns out to be incredibly complicated.
So I start with the transform modifier. Then I select rotate. All good so far. But now I need to choose an axis which doesn't exist. So I need to create a sketch extra for this. This makes me end up with two sketches in every design that define the basic axis. Very cumbersome.
Now "Fool" you tell me, "Why don't you use mate-connectors?". "Behold" I reply. How do I select a mate connector. I've got an empty sketch, with a gear which I want to rotate around a certain axis. But no matter from where I look at the center point, I can only get a mate connector for 2 out of 3 axis, it's the third axis I need to select, but I don't get the icon for it. Yet I find it very hard to predict, when I get which Icon while moving over the center point for the mate connector selection.
What am I doing wrong? How can I precisely select a mate connector from the center point to give me the axis I like?
Comments
Hello Andreas. If I understand your question correctly, you can open the Mate Connector feature, deselect Owner entity, place the mate connector at the origin and select Realign and then select a plane to achieve the desired alignment. - Scotty
@andreas_kurka
So you are in a part studio, right? What is the reason for not using the transform feature with the rotate option?
delelect owner entity? realign? where do I find that? All I know is basically the dialog as @martin_kopplow mentioned. There is a center point, it basically serves as mate connector for all three planes, right? It's just, sometimes I can't select it in the way I need
Have you tried the learning center?
https://learn.onshape.com/
I don't know how that's supposed to help me. I would like to rotate something. I got told that's possible without using a separate sketch that creates the rotation axis. I got told this can be done using transform/rotate/mate connector. But it's not possible for me to select that mate connector. I can select 2/3 mate connectors, but the one I can not select is the one I need. So how do I select the front plane, top plane, right plane mate connectors? I can only select the top or front plane mate connector. But the right plane mate connector just can not be selected. So in 33% of the cases I need to create a separate sketch. To be more precise, I need to do it for 100%, as this way my methodology always works and not just in 66% of the cases.
I'm sorry I'm getting a bit angry here. But this problem exists for years now.
All I want to do, is to make this gear lie flat on the ground: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/d75b529c1e73db1c7d7692a7/w/101b97c5d3dec5dbec7f5619/e/3e4aaf62a6c6f1b9d557209e
You can use the "Realign" option to adjust your mate connector to point in whichever way you want (without needing a sketch).
As far as finding it… Well, that's were looking at the help/tutorials comes in handy…
No need for anger. The folks here want to help.
There is a common thread for some people to do a lot of transforms. In IMHO they are mostly unnecessary and seam to lead to confusion for the reason they are used,
Parts can be repositioned in the assembly to meet the goals using mates as intended.
Another option in this case would be to draw the gears first and work from existing parts to draw new parts in place with no transforms,
My sample did not take long to rebuild with out transforms except the the one I used to set gear index.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/a9a6de24025a92ea1d5deecd/w/fa54cb889a10a73d0e46c583/e/750ecbf699650fd7854347f3
Animate Revolute 1 or 2 in assembly if you want it to spin.
If you haven't done any of the learning center it will help to go through some of the fundamentals training bits. learning how the tools work will help not only do what you want now but also learn how to do what you want and more later. If there were a transform tool tutorial I'd link it for you but sadly I don't see that. I'm sure what you want to do can be done 100% of the time.
This is suppoed to help you because the answer is one of the most basic Onshape feature : the Mate Connector. The basic courses will teach you why the Mate Connector is and how it can be used, this will not only answer your question but help you in so many other ways when using Onshape. Not using the Mate Connectors is a big handicap.
I made a MC at the origin. Then transformed by MC, using the implicit MC of the featurescript gear's sketch. Was quite easy:) Probably didn't even need the MC I made, but I like it so I can select it from the feature list and keep things better organized.
Link:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/cb24cfb6a0c05b6e56185faf/v/bd192d19c479a0c3d901f6bb/e/7fccb7eaadadc24dfe90f87c
Btw, if you update the gear FS, there is added functionality to place it at a MC. So the transform is no longer needed at all.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/cb24cfb6a0c05b6e56185faf/v/a9c1fee4935dac2256c8e55d/e/7fccb7eaadadc24dfe90f87c