Faster mates?

In the continuing saga...

I have all these parts in an assembly that need three mates each:

1- Coincident, part front plane to a plane
2- Coincident, part top plane to a line
3- Coincident, part right plane to a line

The procedure I've been using has been to go one-by-one and add these mates
to each part. It takes me about 30 seconds per part. Most of that time
seems to be spent waiting for the SW GUI to spasm through the motions (after
you hit "enter") before giving control back to the user to go select another
set of entities to mate.

Now, I'm not running on the fastest machine in the world --a 1.8 GHz P4, 2GB
DDR2 and NVidia Quadro FX4000 card-- but given what I presume is being done,
I can't see how this could make a difference between 30 seconds and what
should ideally be nearly instantaneus.

Is there a way to prevent SW from doing so much work while entering mates?
I'd love to be able to do something like:

click Front Plane (selected on the tree)
click on a plane in the assembly
click coincident
hit enter

click Top Plane
click on a line in the assembly
click coincident
click enter

click Right Plane
click on a line in the assembly
click coincident
click enter

....without the wait between each click and at the end of each mate cycle.

As a secondary question. What does patterning within an assembly do with
regards to mates. Let's say that you insert a bolt and hand-mate it to the
appropriate hole. Then you pattern that bolt as required (say, a circular
pattern). Are the patterned bolts mated or just "there"? Does it matter?

-Martin

 

possibly you want to read up about 'mate references' in the help section

 

Martin,

They used to have a "defer mates" button that did exactly that.

Mark

 

unchecking "preview" is the same as the old defer mate option

hope that helps
Steve Tietz
Martin,

They used to have a "defer mates" button that did exactly that.

Mark

 

are you mating the same type of component? like the snap domes? If it
is so repetative, then you again may want to look at feature driven
patterns. Mate one once, all the others are placed based on the
existing pattern.

Or... can you use smart mates + "insert mate reference" to enhance
automatic mating when inserting the parts? read up on smart mates in
help

If you have made holes using the hole wizard, then when you insert a
bolt, you have the option to populate all the holes in one go.

Defer mates... i think it is somewhere there...

I believe they behave as the originating part is - if the original is
fixed the patten is fixed, if the original have 1 degree of movement
(relative to the pattern). I seem to recall that some dialogue options
allow to recreate mates, but I forget for which function that is.

Daniel

 

Martin,

At http://kcswug.com/programs/macros/ there is a macro called:
CoincidentMate.swp

Just link that to a button on your Macro Toolbar, or to access it even
faster link it to a "hotkey". Then all you have to do is select the 2
features and the run the macro. The only problem is that sometimes you
will need to manually flip the mate from Aligned to Anti-Aligned.

Regarding question #2, I think you need to look at the SW Help on
"Feature Driven Pattern" and see if this might help. The best way to
describe this is with an example: make a Hole Wizard feature in a part,
putting say 4 counterbored holes in the part. Next in your assembly
mate one bolt to one of those holes. Now Insert a Feature Drive Pattern
using the Hole Wizard sketch as the driving feature...and BAM!!! now
there are 3 more fasteners matching the other 3 hole locations. This
will automatically update if you move the holes and/or if the quantity
of holes changes. *Or* if you made a pattern of holes/features in the
part, then all you have to do is mate one component to the first
feature and then Insert the Feature Drive Pattern with the part's
pattern as the driving feature in the component pattern.

FYI, I make as many holes/features as I can using the Hole Wizard for
exactly this reason. If the Hole Wizard isn't applicable to the design,
then I pattern the feature. Only as a last resort would I draw the
feature multiple times (either in a sketch or in multiple features).
This will save lots of mates (and component instances in the Feature
Tree) when in assemblies.

Ken

 

You could also try "Smart Mates", or [Alt] draging your components to
create mates.

Ken

 

There used to be mate macros posted somewhere on the net where you
could select 2 faces/planes and hit the 'c' key for a co-incident mate.
When I have a chance I will look for them.

Zander

 

Using Macro's you can suppress rebuilds for a time. This may have undesired
results because you won't see where your parts are going until you turn the
rebuilds back on and rebuild. But it works pretty quickly.

 

Ok, several replies to you, but something missing.

If you are in SW2003, there is, in fact, a defer mates box to check. In
SW2004 or SW2005, the Defer Mates "setting" was reversed - the norm is to
defer the mates. So, the way I do things in this situation, is drop the
parts in & rotate & position them to an approximate position. The most
important thing is that you get them going the proper direction so that
coincident/concentric etc mates go the right direction. If you want to see
them as you go, leave the preview on. However, sometimes the parts will
zoom out of the window because they are way out of position in one
direction.

So, assuming you want to zip in the mates quickly, turn off the preview.
Select the first 2 things, hit your "m" hotkey for "mates" (presuming you DO
have that one set??), click the OK arrow in the flyout toolbar, and then do
your next mate. At the end of all the mates, hit "Enter" or click the
checkmark in the property manager.

Now, if you want to see each one go to make sure it goes, turn on the
preview. If you want to complete each one as you go, click the flyout
checkmark, and then hit "Enter" rather than waiting for the system to allow
you to click the property manager checkmark. The system will store the
Enter hit in the keyboard buffer and apply it as soon as it can. However,
for you to click the checkmark, it will not buffer that mouse click - you
have to wait for the previous operation to complete

As far as the pattern question, I don't know of anything to add.

WT

 

Ah yes I forgot to mention one of my favorite hints.

You can use MateRefs without creating mate references in the parts. Say you
insert a part with a cylinder that you want to mate to a hole or vice-versa
(I know that isn't how it is spelled but you get the point.) Hold ALT down
and select one of the cylindrical edges and start dragging you will see the
part become transparent. Now drag it to the cylinder you want to mate to.
If done right you will see the part you are dragging jump into position. If
you let go of the LMB it will mate the part cylindrically and
Coincident(Anti-aligned).

You can also get coincident mates in a similar manner going from planar
surface to planar surface.

Corey

 

Corey,

If I recall, without testing it now, you can also change the alignment
if you also press TAB at some point in that process - I think before
you let the LMB go. or is it after - but I think it is possible to get
your part flipped like that, isn't it?

Daniel

 

You have to let go of alt but not LMB and hit TAB

 

BTW, using 2005 w/latest SP.

Yes, I've been using the keyboard buffer trick all along. The timings I
provided were based on using this entry mode rather than mousing around for
every step.

-Martin