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453 Getting More from Mates 13 FIGURE 13.26 Creating a Width mate FIGURE 13.27 Making conical faces coincident Select these faces 454 Working with Assemblies Part III 12. Mate both of the grippers to the Arm2 end using the same mating technique that you used for the previous conical face Coincident part. 13. Once you have applied these parts, try moving the various joints of the assembly. Notice that it is difficult, if not impossible, to isolate the motion of just a single part. This is because there are too many open degrees of freedom, and a lot of ambiguity. 14. Fix Arm2 to allow you to move the gripper parts as you want. Create a Symmetric mate between the indicated faces of the grippers and the Front plane of the Arm2 part, as shown in Figure 13.28. FIGURE 13.28 Creating a Symmetric mate Faces for symmetric mate 15. Practice making angle mates, suppressing mates, and fixing parts to limit motion. 16. Save the assembly and exit the file. 455 Getting More from Mates 13 Summary A thorough understanding of mates, and editing and troubleshooting techniques in particular, makes the difference between a real assembly artist and a user who struggles through or avoids certain tasks. There is a lot about mates that is not simply straightforward, but with practice, you can understand and master them. You can put assemblies together quickly, with a focus on rebuild performance and Dynamic Assembly Motion. Although best practice concepts should not dominate your designs, they are great guidelines to start from. Watch out for the pitfalls outlined in the section in this chapter that summarizes mate best practices to avoid making big mistakes. 457 A ssembly configurations enable you to control many things, including part configurations, suppression, visibility, color, and assembly fea- ture sizes. They also allow you to control assembly layout sketch dimensions, mate values, suppression states, and several other items. What you will learn in this chapter about assembly configurations builds on the information in Chapter 10, which discusses part configurations. In this chap- ter, you will also learn how design tables are used in conjunction with SolidWorks assemblies. Display States are a better performance alternative to using configurations to control visibility of parts in assemblies. I discuss Display State options at length in this chapter. Using Display States Users have always been able to show parts transparent and shaded at the same time, and a common workaround for combining Shaded and Wireframe modes has been to display the parts as Shaded with Edges, but to make some parts completely transparent. This gives the effect of some parts being shown in Wireframe mode. Because of Display States, this workaround is no longer necessary. Display States also allow you to change between visualization modes more quickly than configurations. Configurations require a lot of data to be saved and accessed for each config, which can cause big delays when switching between configurations, but you can change between Display States almost instantaneously. IN THIS CHAPTER Using Display States Understanding assembly configurations Creating exploded views Tutorial: Working with assembly configurations Assembly Configurations and Display States 458 Working with Assemblies Part III Display States and configurations Display states are independent of configurations. Display states were introduced in 2006, and ini- tially they were dependent upon configurations, so that states had to be copied between configs. In 2008, display states were made independent from configs so all of your display states will control the display of all configs. To control the display, you can use the Display Pane that flies out from the FeatureManager when you click the double-arrow icon in the upper-right corner of the FeatureManager. This is shown in Figure 2.1 in Chapter 2. Figure 14.1 shows the Display Pane in action, along with an assembly showing parts in different Display States. FIGURE 14.1 The Display Pane and an assembly with parts in different Display States The column symbols for the Display Pane are as follows: n Hide or Show state of the part n Display Mode options for each component: n Appearances n Transparency n Default Display 459 Assembly Configurations and Display States 14 n Component/Part Color (see Note) NOTE NOTE The difference between a component and a part in SolidWorks assemblies is that a component is a generic way of identifying any top-level item in an assembly, and may be a single part or a subassembly. It always refers to a specific instance of the part within the assembly. In the case shown in Figure 14.1, the gripper jaw part is used twice, and so there are two instances of the gripper jaw. One instance has its component color set to yellow, and the other instance uses the part color. (The component color is also referred to as an override of the part color). The part color is what you see when you open the part in its own window. The com- ponent color is only set in the assembly, and you can only see it in that particular assembly; it never affects how the part displays in any other assembly that the part is shown in. When there is a difference between the part and component display properties (when an over- ride exists), the component property appears as the upper-left triangle, in the color column of the Display Pane, and the part property appears as the lower-right triangle. You can only see these triangles in the Appearance column. In addition to this talk of components and overrides, SolidWorks is transitioning to focusing more on what is called the Appearance, which includes RealView materials, colors, and textures, including all of the settings formerly known as Optical Properties. Appearance overrides are discussed in Chapter 3, but I will briefly summarize it here, showing the lowest priority at the top: n Part n Body n Feature n Face n Component If you override the appearance or display mode for a component in a subassembly, and the upper- left triangle appears in the Display Pane, you can remove the override through either the left- mouse button (LMB) or right-mouse button (RMB) menu. Figure 14.2 shows the LMB menu from a component of a subassembly with overrides. FIGURE 14.2 You can remove overrides in the Assembly Display Pane. 460 Working with Assemblies Part III When you select Clear Override, SolidWorks clears any overrides for the currently selected subas- sembly component. Clear All Top Level Overrides clears all overrides in all subassemblies in the entire top-level assembly. There is no intermediate option to clear all top-level overrides for a par- ticular subassembly; if you want to distinguish between overrides at that level, you need to clear several individual overrides. The options to remove overrides do not affect top-level components. The active Display State appears in angle brackets after the configuration name and the filename at the top of the FeatureManager, as shown in the image on the left in Figure 14.3. Display States are created and managed in the ConfigurationManager, in a panel at the bottom of the ConfigurartionManager, as shown in the image on the right in Figure 14.3. To create a new Display State, simply right-click in the Display Pane and choose Add Display State. It seems a little counterintuitive that in the place where you create Display States you cannot see the list of Display States. FIGURE 14.3 Display States shown in the FeatureManager and the ConfigurationManager PERFORMANCE PERFORMANCE Display States offer a huge performance gain over configurations when used to con- trol display of parts. The reason for this is that SolidWorks saves some model infor- mation for each configuration. In the past, configurations were sometimes created only for display purposes, and changing them required reading the model geometry again. When a con- figuration is created only for the purpose of hiding or coloring a part, this takes up a lot of addi- tional file space and CPU time. Display States change much faster than configurations — almost instantaneously — and they add very little file size to use. 461 Assembly Configurations and Display States 14 Display States and drawings Display States can be shown on drawings, although the behavior is not perfect. If you only show or hide parts in Display States, you will escape most of the problems. It seems for Display States that change the display mode (wireframe, shaded, and so on) to work properly, you have to set the view itself to Shaded, then select the display state from the PropertyManager for the view. The big catch here is that you have to change the Display State of the parent view, changing the Display State of a projected view does nothing, even though the controls are available. Projected views cannot have a Display State that is independent from the parent view.Drawing views are discussed in depth in Chapter 21. Understanding Assembly Configurations Assembly configurations are used for many different purposes, including assembly performance, simplified assemblies, variations of assemblies, assemblies in different positions or states, and many others. Like part configurations, assembly configs also have a few best practice type suggestions. Configuration settings for assemblies control how the assembly appears in a Bill of Materials (BOM), what happens to parts, features, or mates that are added to other configurations, and so on. All of these are discussed in this section. Configurations for performance One of the best tools to make large assemblies easier to work with is assembly configurations. You can use several techniques to improve the speed of working with assemblies. Although this infor- mation is presented in a list of techniques, it is important to select a method that fits the situation. Suppressing components and features The most obvious use of configurations for improving assembly speed is to have a configuration or several configurations with suppressed components. One thing to watch out for when doing this is that configurations are not used in the place of subassemblies. If subassemblies are appropriate for the task, then you should use subassemblies. If not, then you should group and suppress parts using configurations. TIP TIP Remember that you can use a folder for parts and suppress the folder. If you are just using configurations to hide parts, consider using Display States, given they are more efficient for that purpose. Also remember that Speedpak, discussed in Chapter 12, is a sub- set of configurations. SpeedPak is a simplified representation, allowing you to select faces and bodies to represent the entire subassembly for performance reasons. Schemes that you may want to use for suppressing parts need to have configurations that isolate functional areas of an assembly, configs that remove the fasteners or purchased components, configs that remove complex parts, configs that only leave the parts used in in-context relations, configs that suppress patterns and assembly features, assembly configs that use simplified part configs, configs that show the assembly in different positions, or variations of the assembly using different part con- figurations. So many possible schemes for creating assembly configurations exist that it is pointless to try to list them all. Use your imagination, make sure that it makes sense, and give it a try. 462 Working with Assemblies Part III TIP TIP Avoid using fasteners to locate parts. The relationship should go the other way. (Fasteners should be located by the holes in parts.) You should already have in place any parts that the fastener stack will touch before the fasteners are added. If parts added after the fasteners are either mated to the fasteners or the holes are created from the fasteners using in-context techniques, then suppressing the fasteners also suppresses the mates that locate those parts, and will cause problems with any in-context features. If you suppress the “ground” part or any part that connects groups of parts, keep in mind that this can cause other parts to float in space unattached. Obviously this is not a good situation, and you should avoid it if possible. One way to avoid it is to use an assembly layout sketch and mate the parts to the sketch instead of to the ground part. Aside from components, other items can also be suppressed to improve performance, such as assembly features and component patterns. Do you really need to see all of those parts patterned around the assembly to work on it in a simplified representation? You may be able to suppress the parts. If you feel that you cannot suppress parts, then consider at least using Display States to hide parts that are needed to complete the parametrics but do not need to display. PERFORMANCE PERFORMANCE The biggest killer of assembly speed is the dreaded circular reference. You can make circular references in a couple of different ways, but they are usually the result of mixing history-based functions (mates, in-context sketch relations, feature references) with non-history-based functions (parts shown in the Assembly FeatureManager). This allows you to create partial or complete loops of references, where A references B, which references A. These are a particular problem with in-context references, which are discussed in more depth in Chapter 16. Configuring SpeedPaks One of the nice developments in SolidWorks 2009 is the SpeedPak. SpeedPaks are described in more detail in Chapter 12. A SpeedPak is a configuration that uses only specific faces and bodies to represent an entire assembly, instead of opening all of the parts in the assembly. In fact, a SpeedPak stores the geometry in the assembly file so it doesn’t have to open any part files at all. Part of the reason I mention SpeedPak in the configuration chapter is that it is a form of configura- tion; another reason is that SpeedPaks are configurable. So you can have top-level assembly config- urations that call on subassemblies to use their SpeedPaks. That can be of significant help with very large assembly performance. Using part configurations for speed I have discussed simplified part configurations in Chapter 10, and they can consist of configs with cosmetic features such as small fillets and extruded text, or other cosmetic details that are sup- pressed. Assembly configurations can use different part configurations, which, for example, would enable you to make an assembly config called “Simplified,” and in it reference all the Simplified part configurations. [...]... in-context relations to size parts when you are also using configurations to size parts A non-configured part driven by a configured part only causes confusion 471 14 Part III Working with Assemblies n Avoid using configurations to represent document control type revisions I have seen people attempt to do this, but in the end, it limits the kinds of edits you can make to your parts and assemblies, and... and back, respectively A single part can explode in multiple directions, or multiple parts can explode in a single direction These two parts are shown exploded in Figure 14.14 Select the base, and then drag the arrow of the Triad that moves in the direction that you want the part to move 473 14 Part III Working with Assemblies FIGURE 14.14 Exploding the base The Tower part is a little more difficult... 14 Part III Working with Assemblies FIGURE 14 .7 The Simplify Assembly tool When trying to speed up the performance of an assembly, the biggest impact is obviously made if you can reduce the load on both the CPU and the GPU You can do this by suppressing a part When a part is suppressed, it is neither calculated nor displayed, and so the load on each processor for that part is zero When you hide a part, ... doing 475 14 Part III Working with Assemblies FIGURE 14.16 Exploding a subassembly Turn on the Select sub-assembly’s parts option, select one gripper, Alt+drag the triad to set the direction, and then drag the distance of the explode If you are in the mood to submit an enhancement request to SolidWorks, then you may want to request a Symmetrical Explode function for situations such as this Figure 14. 17. .. Insert ➪ Explode Line Sketch This displays the Explode Sketch toolbar and the Route Line PropertyManager interface Creating nice 477 14 Part III Working with Assemblies explode lines takes a little practice, but it is easiest with circular parts, or circular features on parts with other shapes Selecting circular edges makes the line start from the center of the circle If after you have selected two... assembly configuration that uses part configurations of a given name, if available The default part configuration name entered in the text box is, I think, suggestive of how SolidWorks intended for this function to be used As shown in Figure 14.4, it is “Simplified.” In previous versions, the Advanced button was conspicuously placed on the front of the Open dialog, but by 2009 it has been changed to a... configuration 472 Assembly Configurations and Display States FIGURE 14.13 Initiating a new exploded view If you are creating assembly instructions or an animation from the exploded view (using SolidWorks Motion or the right-mouse button options, Animate Explode, or Animate Collapse), then you may need to be more careful about how the parts are exploded You can create explode lines that show how the parts go... the CPU; however, because the part is hidden, it creates no load on the GPU If you have a good main processor and a questionable video card, then you will achieve a greater benefit from removing graphics load from your display Lightweight parts On the other hand, if you want to still show a part but not calculate any of its parametric relations, you should use Lightweight parts You can find Lightweight... the parts, you should rotate the view from time to time Unless you are creating the explode for a particular point of view, the explode may look very different if you rotate it a little TIP For the final explode step, the grippers will explode individually in opposite directions Remember that these parts belong to another subassembly If you create an explode step with the Select subassembly’s parts... with sketches This particular assembly is driven by two sketches on different planes to govern the position of the parts Keep in mind that this assembly has been used for all of the other techniques as well, and so all of these techniques can exist together simultaneously, being controlled by configurations 469 14 Part III Working with Assemblies Examine the assembly to see how the parts are mated to . relations to size parts when you are also using configurations to size parts. A non-configured part driven by a configured part only causes confusion. 472 Working with Assemblies Part III n Avoid. those parts, and will cause problems with any in-context features. If you suppress the “ground” part or any part that connects groups of parts, keep in mind that this can cause other parts to. Assemblies Part III TIP TIP Avoid using fasteners to locate parts. The relationship should go the other way. (Fasteners should be located by the holes in parts.) You should already have in place any parts