angle mates again.

SW has had mate problems with 90, 180, 270 and 0 since day one. The only reliable way to pass through is to get close and tip toe across. The math to deal with this has been around for 143 years. It was developed by a gentleman named Hamilton.

I'm guessing that Hamilton probably isn't working at Solidworks anymore so I think there is definately a problem here! Of course, after finding a working solution, next time I reopened the assembly the mate values had flipped and my part was pointing 1.5=B0 the other way.

Zander

T> SW has had mate problems with 90, 180, 270 and 0 since day one. The

Yes - this subject even came up on the NG a few days ago relating to animator.

Last week I had to buy new prototypes (on our dime -company policy on mistakes) because an angle mate spontaneously flipped and I didn't catch it before release (no interferences in the assembly, just a part subtly pointing the wrong way).

When I can, I try to 'coincident' mate component planes to sketch lines instead (or better yet, 'coincident mates' to additional planes made from those sketch lines so there is an explict choice on 'alignment'). I have no excuse for skipping that best practice last week. Stupid me.

Of course, that tip doesn't help with limit mates (which can be another brand of ugly - lots of overdefinition for no good reason - I avoid them and use configs, with a note for min/max in the dim itself whenever I can). But in most cases mating to sketches or planes to define the angle prevents avoidable and expensive problems.

Ed

However, as Paul pointed out, I am really tempted to point my finger at them not paying attention to that mathmetician guy. Not my fault, not my fault!

I know - that was me again with the animator thing... I'm having lots of fun with limit mates lately.

Sorry to hear about the prototypes - it's one thing to make a mistake and a whole other ballgame when the software decides to make subtle changes for you.

My last prototype incident was simply having the rp place build the 'quote' file not the 'build' file..... that was their dime!

There are probably a dozen decent ways of emulating angle limit mates but I still keep using them because either I'm lazy or too busy (it's the later for sure...) - but seriously when they work they are very usefull in my assemblies for testing trajectories.

Zander

snipped-for-privacy@juno.com wrote:

I've never been able to count on angle or limit mates 100% of the time, but I still use them because they make visualizing certain aspects of the assembly much more straight forward. Here's one method that I know makes them much more reliable. I agree, SW sucks at 0 & 180 degrees, but now that you know that, you can simply avoid it (if possible). Instead of having a range of -1.5 - 100 deg, create a reference plane relative to your plane of interest that is offset by let's say 10 deg. Now create your limit mate relative to the new plane with a range of

8=2E5 - 110 deg. The mate should function much more predictably now that there is no zero crossing.

Also, on a side note, Limit mates and flexible sub-assemblies don't often mix well. If you have only have 1 or 2 in your assembly it's not a big deal, but any more than that and they will almost always mess up. If you really need those 10 air cylinders to move realistically, just make them from separate components assembled at the top level.

-Mahir

Zander wrote: