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Annoying Design Table problem

Hello,

I am trying to create a design table that determines an angle between two planes.

I want the range of configurations to include: a) the "nominal" coincident state between the two planes (angle 0) b) a "positive" range of angles in one direction (from angle 0 to +ve x degrees) c) a "negative" range of angles in the opposite direction (from angle 0 to -ve x degrees)

As we know, SW does not handle -ve dimensional values. I therefore can not create just a single angular mate between the two planes and populate the Design Table with -ve numbers to get my -ve angle configurations. I have tried to define a second angular mate to handle the -ve angle configurations. I did this by rotating the planes until they were in the -ve angular position. I tried to suppress the -ve mate & activate the

+ve mate when defining the coincident and +ve angle configurations and suppress the +ve mate and activate the -ve mate when defining the -ve angle configurations.

This still doesn't work. Seems that "flip dimension" does not help out as I thought it would.

Has anyone got a work-around for this?

Cheers

Bullman

Reply to
Bullman
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Hello - the solidworks is happy to make the mates going from the 0 to the

360, but not the bad angles (negative are bad).

The table you are making can make different basepoint and then subtract to make apparently angle negative.

Your table/model make

180 in table = to nominal in models 360 = to maximal angles 0 = to minimals.

Thus your problem is made to go away by making the table basepoint to be 180 offset from model. This tables can calcualte this, so you make it accept the values you are wanting to inputs and make model recieve table states. table will command model to move to you desired zero by setting actual value to 180, max in the model is 360 in the table and so forth and so onward.

See how by placing the angle offset between the design table and model you can affectively make a negative angles.

Thank you very much please!!!!

Habib

Reply to
Habib

Why not just convert -5 into 355degrees?

Or have you tried choosing Aligned or Anti-Aligned instead of Flip Dimension for the 2nd mate? It'll probably do what you want but instead of putting in 5 for you desired -5 value, you'll have to play around with it and see which of these will give you that angle (5,

175, 185, 395, or even possibly 75, 85, 265, or 275). I never know what combination of Aligned/Anti-Aligned/Flip Dimension will yield what angular dimension, it's all trial and error.

Ken

Reply to
kema

Thanks Habib, I did end up doing that, but reluctantly. It does work but the whole point of it all was to make the controlling parameters in the Design Table the same as what your refer to them in real life. In real life, the assembly has planes which are defined by the magnitude of angle away from the "0 degree" in the "positive" and "negative" directions. Now I have to control my model using "indirect" dimensional values.

It would be good perhaps if in the design table, the "direction" of the dimensional parameter could be toggled.

Bullman

Reply to
Bullman

You could create an extra column ($comment) to accept the values in the format you want. The the column driving the model would calculat Sw legal values from the numbers entered in the new column. Would that be acceptable?

Reply to
Dale Dunn

I thought about that. But the thing is that you would still have to call up the Design Table inbetween edits to view the effects of possibly the many changes you may be making to the assembly. I also lock the Design Table so that changes can not be transfered to the Design Table from the assembly (only from within the Design Table itself) as I want to be sure that I am just altering unrestrained parameters.

If a "Key Parameter" window stayed permanently up and updated automatically, intergotaion of an assembly would be much easier.

Cheers

Bullman

Reply to
Bullman

I forgot you wanted to see these all the time.

Reply to
Dale Dunn

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