Find Mate Holding Assy

[BodyBagger]

Hello all,
I have an assembly with a hydraulic cylinder in it. The cylinder is a "flexible sub-assy" but I can not move it. The assy has 238 parts and 1320 mates. What is the best way to locate the mate that is preventing me from pulling the cylinder up/down? I have already checked all the mates for the cylinder assy itself and none of them are preventing the movement. There must be a coincident or distance mate somewhere else in the assy that is preventing it from moving. I can not believe that looking at the 1320 mates would be the only way.

Thanks,
BB

 

[Updraft]

Is the cylinder a subassy and is it set to Flexible?

- - -Updraft

 

[BodyBagger]

Hi Updraft,
The cylinder is a sub-assy and it is set to flexible.

Thanks

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Does the cylinder move correctly in the sub-assy?

Which has the 238 parts and 1320 mates? (The top level or the sub)
Either way, that's a lot of mates!

Is that 238 unique parts, or total parts? Usually only a maximum of three mates are required to fully constrain a part. 238 x 3 = 714. What are the rest doing?

 

[BodyBagger]

CBL,
The cylinder moves fine in it's own assy. Many people here constrain everything with mates including washers, bolts, pins, etc. The top level has the 238 and 1320. Screenshot included here.

Thanks,
BB

 

[AnnaWood]

I think you have way to many mates for the number of parts and sub-assemblies you show. Look at your entire mate scheme and make it more efficient. That will go a long way to solving your problem.

Anna Wood
Core i7 EE965, FirePro V8700, 12 Gb RAM, OCZ Vertex 120 Gb SSD, Dell 3008WFP 30" Monitor
SW2010 SP2.1, Windows 7 x64

http://www.solidmuse.com

http://www.phxswug.com

 

[AnnaWood]

Are you making use of feature driven patterns for the insertion of your fasteners?

Anna Wood
Core i7 EE965, FirePro V8700, 12 Gb RAM, OCZ Vertex 120 Gb SSD, Dell 3008WFP 30" Monitor
SW2010 SP2.1, Windows 7 x64

http://www.solidmuse.com

http://www.phxswug.com

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Run the AssemblyXpert on each sub-assy to expose where the excessive mate usage exists. As I mentioned above, a part need only have 3 mates to make it fully constrained. It would seem you have many duplicate or redundant mates.

Eliminating the excess mates will probably correct the flexibility issue.

 

[JMirisola]

There are only 322 top level mates, so that's probably not the issue, directly. Is that tie rod, or whatever it is, flexible? After that I would start suppressing parts that could stop the assembly from functioning if they are fully constrained. It could be something as simple as a coincidence mate between planes.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
Design Manager/Senior Designer
M9 Defense
My Blog

 

[BodyBagger]

Hi Anna,
Unfortunately I do not have the time to evaluate the mate structure of this entire assembly. I did not create this assy or many of the parts in it. This means that almost no "feature driven patterns will be here". This is because I am the only one here who uses the hole wizard, everyone else extrude cuts holes (and makes bolts from scratch, but that is another disaster on it's own). At this point I simply need to know what is the fastest way to find what is keeping it from moving. Aside from not having a single CAD standard, I am a lowly contract worker who has no authority on how things are done here.

Thanks,
BB

 

[JMirisola]

I really should have had more coffee before I answered. I just realized I didn't finish my line of thinking.

By suppressing parts that could affect the motion of the cylinder, you'll be able to narrow down the number of mates possibly affecting it. Once you've found a part that, when suppressed, allows the cylinder to move, just look at its mates to determine which one if causing the problem. Bear in mind that it may be a couple of parts.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
Design Manager/Senior Designer
M9 Defense
My Blog

 

[BodyBagger]

Hi Jeff,
I will give that a shot and see what kind of results I get. I thought there may be a way to "view mates" that are preventing a specific part from moving.

Thanks

 

[AnnaWood]

BB,

Wish there was a magic, fix the crap my co-workers did button. Sadly there is not. I feel for you.

Cheers,

Anna Wood
Core i7 EE965, FirePro V8700, 12 Gb RAM, OCZ Vertex 120 Gb SSD, Dell 3008WFP 30" Monitor
SW2010 SP2.1, Windows 7 x64

http://www.solidmuse.com

http://www.phxswug.com

 

[SnowCrash]

This may help: if you select two parts of an assembly the property manager will show their mates with the shared mates in bold.

--
Hardie "Crashj" Johnson
SW 2010 SP 2.1
HP Pavillion Elite HPE

 

[BodyBagger]

SnowCrash,
I like your suggestion as well, I never noticed that.

Thanks,
BB