Deform Part problems with sketches in NX 7.5

[hackfreeworld]

I've used Deformable Part successfully many times in the past, but now I'm stuck. I need to compress gaskets in an assembly and when I create the deform the part moves and reorients to the assembly's origin & CSYS. The gaskets are a simple extrude based on a sketch. When I tested with a simple block, it worked fine, but this profile is too complex and reuseable to scuttle it for a block and slots, etc.

By the way, good points were found in related threads, and I checked to make sure the horizontal reference, extrude direction and anything else was based on the datum CSYS feature and not based on the general coordinate system.

My workaround: I created Promote Body for each gasket. Since the bolted joints are each planar, I made all top faces in each bolted joint coplanar using Synchronous. I put a linear dimension on one of the gaskets using Synchronous. For good housekeeping, I embedded these two features in a feature set with all associated Promoted Body features, one set for each bolted joint.

Does anyone have a suggestion for how to use the Deformable Part functionality properly to solve this problem? in other words, is there a more elegant workaround for its apparent inability to handle sketch-driven geometry?

EDC

"We know only as much as we ask."
- Wessel Gansfort, 1419-1489

 

[jerry1423]

I only have a guess.
Instead of using surface face normals (or anything else based off the solid) as the orientation axis, use the axis on the Datum Coordinate System from the part.
What you do is bring in "entire part" as the refernce set, and when you are done with everything change the reference set back to "model" (or whatever the reference set was). Even if the reference set isn't showing it will still select the datum axis you picked.

 

[hackfreeworld]

Thank you for your post. I'm not sure I understand about the "face normal" advice. Maybe it will help if I clarify; the first two paragraphs take place in the component part I'm attempting to deform; the third paragraph refers to the workaround for showing it deformed in the assembly part.

EDC