solidworks 2004 sp03 mate question

I recently saved a 30+ part assembly created in solidworks 2003 to the
sw2004 sp03 format, in doing so around 25 percent of the mates broke. What I
mean by broke is that the paper clip symbol has 2 red lines crossing it.
When you right click on any one of these broken paper clips and select the
"edit feature" option what I see in the "mate selections" field is one of
the surfaces defining the mate and the other surface is listed as "Face ?
**invalid**".
To find out if this condition is an issue, I move any one of the components
that have this problem, sure enough, the part is no longer mated. Is there a
way for solidworks to automatically re-attach the mates to there pre sw2004
translation condition?

 

My guess is that what you are seeing is the result of the software getting
"smarter" in that it recognizes that something you were allowed to do in
2003 is not really a good idea. Therefore it flags it as invalid. This
could be something in the way the object was created, the order of mates,
etc. Other theories?

WT

 

If you can properly open up the assembly in 2003 and verify the mates were
not broken before send it to your VAR these are the types of issues that get
Higher priority. Believe it or not SW doesn't want your models and drawings
to change betweeen releases.

Corey

 

Good thought - I should have thought of that..... :-(

WT

 

I have seen this frequently in SW2003 and SW2004, any SP.

The one thing you can check on is whether or not the files you think you are
opening in the assembly are actually the ones that it mated.

Also check that there are not suppressed features causing the problem.

If you open the mate it will likely say Invalid Face.

If you still have the file in 2003 format reopen it and do a CTRL-Q rebuild
and see if that brings up any faults in 2003.

Also, make sure that Search Referenced file locations is turned off when you
open it. Otherwise SW goes through an elaborate search for the names of the
components in the assembly that may not be what you expect.