reusing sketches

I have a profile of channel section drawn as a layout sketch in an
assembly. I want to reuse this sketch in numerous parts within the assembly
so that all my channel sections are identical (they would just be different
lengths and have other features applied to them). I know I can copy and
paste the sketch into each of my parts but the copy does not have a link to
the original. I don't want to use equations for this (due to the number of
equations I would potentially need) nor a design table for a similar
reason, and applying equal relations between entities in different sketches
doesn't seem to work unless the entities being related are parallel. I
can't use configurations of the same part since there are an infinite
number of possible lengths. I am trying to keep my assembly as versatile as
possible with all parameters driven via layout sketches or reference
geometry at the assembly level.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

What I would like to be able to do is have the sketch defined in my
assembly and then create a link to it when I need to use it in a part, with
the ability to redefine the sketch plane and any external relations for
each instance of the sketch.

TIA.

 

What I would like to be able to do is have the sketch defined in my

Create a new part, with only a sketch of the channel profile (I will
refer to this as profile.sldprt). Do not extrude the sketch. Then
create a new assembly. Insert profile.sldprt into the assembly, and
define it's position with mates or the default fixed position. Now
insert a new part (named channel1.sldprt), and choose a plane that the
profile from profile.sldprt is on. Convert entities from the sketch
in profile.sldprt to the new sketch being created for channel1.sldprt,
and extrude this sketch. Each additional channel must be started by
inserting the profile.sldprt, mating the part so the profile is
positioned correctly, then inserting a new part, converting entities
(you can select one entity and choose closed profile).

Down side to this are you must insert profile.sldprt each time you
want a different channel and position it properly. There are also
some limitations to changes to the profile shape, although parametric
changes to dimensions update with no problem.

If you want, I can e-mail you my crude example.

Another way, if your profile is already defined is to save it to a
template and start each part based on the template. No updates to all
profiles though.

Mike Rice
222t (remove all 2's)

 

Derived sketches are exactly what you want. Select the sketch that you want
to derive, then ctrl + select the plane/face that you want to put it on then
select Insert... Derived Sketch.... This will insert the sketch but it is
blue - simply move it and constrain it where you want it and it will go
black (if you try to add any dims it will over define).

Big advantage of this method - if you change the original sketch/profile all
other derived sketches will change also.

Merry