Sketches in an Assembly

Hi Everyone,

I'm new here, and quite new to Solidworks. Just trying to find my way
around. It is a little different to my usual software and I get a
little frustrated sometimes when I know what I want to do, but can't
quite work out how Soldiworks wants me to do it. Going quite well,
but I've hit a bit of a brick wall, that I hope some of you old hands
can help me through.

I have constructed an assembly from various parts, so far so good.
But I want to trim an outer case to the outline of some batteries
contained within it. Dead simple trim, just requires a circle to be
cut out of a pad standing up on the case. I can easiy create a sketch
on the end of the battery, but cannot use it to trim the case. When I
try to use the sketch to trim the case it tells me the sketch must be
linked to the part I'm working on, and the sketch is linked to the
battery, not the case. How should I be approacjing this?

Thanks for any help,

Kevin

 

Highlight the "case", then pick "edit part", then make your sketch on the
"battery" face and trim the case.

Mike Eckstein

 

But when I selected "edit part" all the other parts in the assembly
(critically, the battery) became transparent and I couldn't select
anything on them, it only seemed to let me work on the part selected.
Have I got an option set wrongly for doing this (I haven't got the
hang of all the options -there seem to be so many of them).

Regards

Kevin

PS

Just had a thought, could I draw the circle in thcorrect orientation
on the required part (case) abd then add smart dimensions to points on
the assembly? -I'll try that when I get back to work.

 

Sounds like you have the option "No external references" selected. That
would prevent you from creating the type of reference that you want. For
me, that button is on the command manager toolbar, but is probably also
accesible (insert spelling coorection here ) through the menus. If I recall
correctly, it is on by default.

If that was not the case, selecting transparent items can be tricky. Try
hovering your mouse over the area where your battery face should be. Right
click and chose "select other", hovering over the selections in the box that
opened up should highlight the appropriate face, then select it. Sometimes
rotating the view to a different orientation ( one in which there are fewer
possible selectable items under your cursor ) can make the selection easier.

 

Kman,
You have that backwards.

Kevin,
You need to what Jo has suggested.
I fought with this for a long time until I figured it out. Actually I think
someone figured it out for me as well.

Muggs

 

Thats it -thanks. By holding down the shift key it lets me select
edges/faces from the other parts while sketching in the case part. I
thought it would be simple -but finding it isn't!.

Regards

Kevin