Mating a lid on a box with screws...

[johndoe3344]

Hi,

I'm new to CAD design, and I'm trying to create a box with a lid that screws on.

So I made two parts: part 1, I just made a cube and then hollowed it out by using shell. part 2 I just made a top "square". I then loaded an assembly of those two parts. I'm having issues mating them and creating screw holes for those two things.

Do any of you have any suggestions on what I should do, and/or could point to a tutorial that might help me?

Thanks a lot.

 

[JMirisola]

Search youtube for SolidWorks tutorials. There's also the built in tutorial in SolidWorks. Search help for info on the hole wizard, too.

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP, Certified DriveWorks AE
CAD Administrator, Ultimate Survival Technologies
My Blog

 

[MadMango]

You have several options, look in Help for Hole Series for one option.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of these Forums?

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Have you worked through the Help > SolidWorks Tutorials sections?

YouTube also has loads of "How to" videos.

Also check out;

http://www.rickyjordan.com/downloads

http://solidjott.com/category/video/

Other SW blogs also have videos.

 

[drawoh]

johndoe3344,

I do this a lot. Model your box and lid with the origin relatively in the same place. You can use a corner, or the centre.

Assemble them using the mounting face, and the origin faces. These faces can be sides, or planes passing through the origin.

Edit the outline sketch of your lid at the assembly level, and match the edges to those of your box.

I usually do the tapped holes on the box first. You can use the outline of the lid to position them. Model the clearance holes of the lid, and locate them to the tapped holes on the box.

I recommend turning on the location sketches of the tapped holes and centreing on these. That way, you can change the box tapped holes to helicoil tapped holes or clearance holes without breaking your sketch.

Insert your screws.

Done!

When you finalize your drawings, replace all parametric sketch features with local dimensions. A model that updates itself parametrically is cool and very convenient at design time. It is a very nasty mess at manufacturing time.

JHG

 

[MDGroup]

Johndoe,

Depending on how you bring a part into an assembly, Solidworks will sometimes automatically fix the origin and reference planes of the parts to the origin-reference planes of the assembly.
Unless the parts were designed from a consistent axis, they will not line up.
If SW brings them in this way, they will be fixed and you cannot re-position them. You will need to right-click on the part and select 'Float'. This should then allow you to select different geometry of the 2 parts to allign/mate.


One other thing to consider. If you are adding screw holes to the parts (or any other cut-features), make sure you are editing the parts and not the assembly. In the assembly, it will allow you to cut holes thru all of the components. But, those features are not in the actual parts, just the assy.