Question About Assemblies
I am trying to model something that has two parts. Part A is always the same. The second part has several different versions (call them B, C, D, etc.). I would like to use an assembly to be able to swap out B, C, etc.. However, their needs to be a fillet at the mate between A and B,C,whatever. Is there any way to add that in when creating the assembly?
behnt 8:43 am on November 26, 2008 Permalink
You could save the assembly as a part and then add the fillet after joining the bodies.
Or you could make a derived part out of the assembly by using the join function and fillet the derived part.
This is from the help menu under 'Creating a Joined Part' :
Create the parts that you want to join, then create an assembly containing the parts.
Position the parts as desired in the assembly. The parts may either touch each other or intrude into one another.
Save the assembly but do not close the window.
Insert a new part into the assembly:
Click New Part on the Assembly toolbar, or click Insert, Component, New Part.
Click a plane or planar face on a component.
In the new part, a sketch opens on the selected plane.
Close the sketch. Because you are creating a joined part, you do not need the sketch.
In the FeatureManager design tree, right-click the new part name, select Rename Part, and rename the new part.
Click Insert, Features, Join.
Make selections and set options in the Join PropertyManager.
Click to create the joined part.
Chris Serran 8:45 am on November 26, 2008 Permalink
You may have more success with inserting Part A into Part B, C, D at the part level using Insert -> Part. This will allow you to insert a fillet between Part A and it's mate, assembly features can only cut material away.
behnt 8:58 am on November 26, 2008 Permalink
This is a good solution but keep in mind that when inserting Part B into A that if you update part B make sure that Part A is open and update part A immediately as the parametrics on a part within a part is kludgy. I haven't tested this with 2009 but 2008 and earlier require this added step to make sure the parametrics are correct.
Chris Serran 9:26 am on November 26, 2008 Permalink
I'm curious in what type of application requires you to do this? If you need to put a fillet between the two components wouldn't they be one part?
Matt 12:05 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink
Thanks for all the help.
In answer to Chris' question about the application:
We are making detailed models of bolts and screws to be rendered for a catalog. There are a couple of different threaded bodies and several head styles. We want to be able to re-use the threaded body from one fastener for another with a different head style. However, many of the heads have a fillet between the body and the head.
So we want to take the threaded body A and attach several different heads. Then if we improve the thread model… update all the resulting models so we can easily re-render them.
At least that is the theory.
behnt 12:13 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink
If you put a small shank on the head(s) then you can fillet it and put it in the assembly with the fillet. But I wonder why you do not make configurations of the threaded shank with the different heads? You can suppress the head geometry of one and build the other etc etc….
Chris Serran 12:24 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink
You could also model the fillet in the revolve of the thread body, that way it matches with whatever head you use.
In addition to Ben's comment, you could do this in one part with a design table and configurations.
Matt 12:28 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink
Got it working using the derived part method. Seems to work for what we need it for.
Thanks Behnt
Matt 12:37 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink
We will be using design tables to drive the thread length, diameter, etc.
We didn't want to make a fillet on the thread side because some of the heads do not mate at 90 degrees (like a flat head screw).
We thought about just suppressing the geometry but we wanted to keep things simpler both for the design table and for our editing.
Putting a short shank on the head might work but we were looking for something more elegant.