Angle Offset Alignment - Often Flips Upon Accepting Placement

[MechEngSS]

When I am using the angle offset constraint for aligning a hinge sleeve to a hinge pin the angle often flips on me upon hitting the checkmark for component placement.

A little background... I have created a hinge that consists of a sleeve and a pin. The pin gets welded to another plate and the sleeve drops onto the pin in the upper assembly. I want to be able to open and close the door, which is welded to the sleeve. In component placement for the sleeve, I align the axes of the sleeve and the pin, I align the mating faces between the two parts, and create an angle offset constraint between a datum plane in the hinge and a datum plane in the sleeve. I then want to be able to change the angle to open the door to various angles. No matter what angle I choose, the door wants to open into the door frame, as opposed to away from it, like it should. I have tried using the flip button in component placement and initially it looks like it works, but then when I hit the check mark, the part flips back the other way. I have also tried inputting negative angles and also tried inputting the difference between 180/360 degrees and my angle (for example, 135 or 315 degrees for my 45 degree angle). It seems that everything I have tried always results in the door opening into the frame.

Has anyone else experienced this? The other engineers in my office also often have the same problem.

We are running Creo 1.0.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

 

[owilcox]

try using the pin connection and use the rotation axis option to control position, see attached

hope this helps
regards

 

[MechEngSS]

A couple issues with the method you mentioned...

1) When I select the pin connection, I only see Axis Alignment and Translation, not Rotation Axis.
2) When I choose the mating surfaces between the pin and the sleeve for the translation constraint, the door flips over, so it is now upside down. The flip button is greyed out, so I cannot flip the coincident constraint.

Also, after defining the axis alignment and translation, the status is listed as "Connection definition is incomplete". I don't seem to have any way to add another constraint.

 

[owilcox]

The rotation axis option only appears when valid axis and translation selections have been made. As for 'connection definition is incomplete' and not being able to flip, I've had issues with this before, and restarting Pro/e seems to solve the problem

 

[MechEngSS]

I got it to work on another assembly and it functions as it should. Any idea why you must use mechanical connection to achieve this relatively simple assembly?

I have been back in Creo for about a year after using SolidWorks for 3 years. Prior to that I had used the various versions of Pro/E for about 10 years. I don't remember ever having this problem in the other versions.

By the way, I much prefer the way this is handled in SolidWorks. Their mechanical connections seem to be more intuitive. And once the connection is made, you can simply grab onto the door with the mouse pointer and swing the door open and closed within the range of motion. No need to go back into edit definition and wait for regeneration, etc.

 

[owilcox]

you can use 'drag components' button on the model tab to grab and move mechanical connections