solidworks limit mates

Jul 08, 2014 1 Replies

Having trouble with limit mates in 2014. Imagine a set of railroad tracks and a rail car. There are stops at each end of the tracks that limit the motion of the rail car. My initial thought was that I could put a limit mate in from BOTH stops, with zero as the minimum and an excessively large value as the upper limit. It SEEMED that this would limit car motion between the stops but give me the freedom to change lengths, etc. without losing my mate functionality. Didn't seem to work so I got around it by putting in a single mate with the actual values.



Now, design parameters have changed. There are now two pair of rails. One pair is fixed, but the other pair is on rollers. Goal is to push rails together until they touch then roll the car from one pair to the other. Once done, need to back the rolling pair of rails out (so a door can close.) Net result is that the distance between stops is variable. Is there a way to set this mate up?


Extra information: After posting yesterday, created a simple assembly with 3 cubic parts. Used limit mates as described initially (2 mates, high end excessively high.) Worked fine. Tried again with my actual assembly. Still not right. Differences are 1) mate is between a cubic block and a wheel OD (basically a tangent mate) and 2) The complexity/size of the assembly.

Appears to work at first -- parts move as expected to on end of the limit, but when I try to move parts back, they go so far and freeze. Solidworks doesn't freeze, the components freeze and are no longer moveable.

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