swx2004sp4 cannot resolve relations if i change part's size

hi all.
with swx2004 we're experiencing a *big* problem and our var doesn't
know how to help us.

i made a little ascii drawing at the end of this post to show you the
"side" view of the assembly you need to see our problem.

let's take a tipical situation: take 2 long bars, for example
70x100x1500 mm. now take 2 small blocks, let's say 10x20x50 mm and put
some relations between them:
- 10x50 face of the blocks to be complanar with 70x1500 faces of the
long bars
- 50x20 face of the blocks to be complanar with each other
- 10x20 "external" faces of the blocks to be complanar with the
"external" 100x1500 faces of the long bars.
at this time, we have built a support/spacer for a "traverse" between
long bars (this traverse will be built later).
now set up a couple of relations to keep the bars parallel each other
and on a plane of your choice. the only thing that must be free is the
distance between long bars, that will be defined by the length of the
traverse.
now extrude a fifth part, let's say a 50x70x500 mm big one.
now let's create the problem:
- 50x500 face must be complanar to 10x50 faces of the small blocks
- 50x70 faces must be complanar to the "external" faces of small
blocks (and, consequently of the long bars)
- 70x500 "upper" face must be complanar to 50x20 faces of the small
blocks.

if i explained well and you keep the 2 long bars "vertical" --from
your point of view--, you should see 2 long bars with 2 small blocks
"welded" to it and a traverse bar welded on these small blocks.

side view:
+--------------+
| | <- this is the traverse
| |
+--------------+
| | <- this is one small block (20mm thick)
+--+--------------+----------------------------+
| |
| |
| this is one long bar |
| |
| |
+----------------------------------------------+

now double click on the small blocks and change their thickness: for
example let's say that 20mm will become 15mm. now confirm size change
and swx won't solve relations.

can somebody point me out the reason of this behaviour?
650kb zipped archive containing assembly and parts is available for
who will want to have a look at it. for them, i'll say in advance that
the part i need to modify is the one whose name ends in 201 and it is
its 20mm edge that needs to become 15mm --or 12 or 10 or i don't know
because we're working on it and need to try different sizes--.

thank you in advance.

 

I probably misunderstand but I can't see how a bit 500 long can effectively
have coplanar relations of its ends with a bit 1500 long... however I was
wondering from your description if your fifth part is an in context part
and the change of block thicknesses produces a mate conflict as the changes
are in transition. i.e. one part is 15 and the other is 20 and also required
to be parallel... if that makes sense..
....probably that wasn't helpful... but I mean well : )

 

I'd be glad to help you troubleshoot. Take the underscores out of my
email address to send the zip file.

It could be an incontext relation, or mates, or a configuration problem
or a subassembly issue or etc. Did you try ctrlQ?


matt

 

i'm sorry i wasn't clear enough
since the 2 blocks are 2 instances of the same part, when you change
thickness of one part, the other one shrinks too.

thank you

 

---<--- Clip

---<--- End Clip
Gianni,
If I understand correctly, it sound like you have ended up with a "loop" in
your equations. If you rebuild after a change and nothing or something does
not appear to update, this can be caused by a loop. What happens if you change
a value, rebuild and then rebuild again? If the second rebuid results in your
assemly or incontext part updating properly, then a loop is the culprit.
Eddie

 

Gianni:

The first thing I see is that all the mates to the ...201 and ...025 parts
have lost references (yellow triangles). Did you send it in this state?
Is this the problem you're talking about? If I change the 20 to 15, then
the mates don't solve, and it is because there are a lot of mates with lost
references (15 broken mates).

After I repaired those mates with what seemed the obvious choices,
everything updated fine.

I'll send you back the assembly file, which is the only thing I changed.
This sounds too easy, I suspect I've missed something.

matt

 

no, everything was fine when i used swx explorer to back up all these
files. but changing 20 -> 15 caused all those triangles to show up.

i saved your assembly on our network drive and told the person working
on that assembly to open it and check if it's ok.
by now, thank you very much --later i'll see what you changed in the
assembly, too--.

i'll let you know asap.

regards.

 

and you sent back to me your updated assembly.
well, it actually happens that:
1. the first time we open your assembly, mates resolve fine
2. if i ctrl+q, everything still works fine
3. if i change the "thickness" of 201 part, mates won't resolve fine
anymore
4. if i get back to the old thickness changing it by hand or undo-ing
changes, mates won't resolve fine anymore

i can't guess what's happening

my var says it's a matter of our installation/setup, but this answer
doesn't solve much of the problem

any more hints?

regards,

 

It is definitely working properly here. I'm using 2004 sp3. There is no
problem with the way the part is built, it looks simple enough. There are
none of the other problems I was worried about before either. You don't
have any named faces. The only other remote possibility I can think of is
if you have fiddled with the switched at Tools, Options, External
References, Automatically generate names for referenced components. I had
that off, but turned it on and it still worked correctly. Unless you are
using some macro that rebuilds parts or features or replaces sketch
entities, I can't think of a reason for this to happen.

Your reseller may be right. It is a simple thing to run a repair on your
installation, making sure antivirus is off.

matt

 

hi matt.
up to sp3 we didn't have that problem.
everything was born with sp4.

one more nice thing is that we don't print "break lines" on drawings
from sp4 on. it is nice (and funny) because it worked fine up to sp3
and was fixed in sp4 =)

i will look at it.
thank you for this suggestion, too.

btw: where are you living? if you're next to las vegas, during august
i'll offer you a beer

regards,