Mirror a patterned feature 1

[toohotforme]

I am new to NX and my reference is another CAD system and the CAST tutorials.

I would like to know how NX’ers go about mirroring a patterned feature?

My example is – a valve has two drilled flanges. I normally;

1. position & size the first hole on a flange face, then
2. cut extrude it,
3. then circular pattern it about the bore

That’s all fine.

Then I mirror the first hole feature together with the circular patterned feature (from above) about the symmetrical centre plane and a new feature results with all the holes on the second flange.

This part is where I am missing a trick. It does not seem possible to mirror a patterned feature in NX?

I have to mirror the first hole, then circular pattern that – two steps with potential for errors - and changes not being carried through.

Another way seems to be to pattern a “face” – select the cylindrical face of each hole then choose the Mirror drop-down option around the plane. Just a bit tedious to select say 12 cylindrical bolt hole faces, but then the potential dimensioning error thingy goes away.

How do the NX speedsters do this with minimal mouse clicks?
Thanks.

 

[mmauldin]

This is how I would create the hole patterns in the flanges. It uses a circular array of the original hole and the mirrors the array.

 

[toohotforme]

Great! Thanks mmauldin.

I couldn't figure out how to achieve the "Instanced" hole feature. I spawned circles when I instanced the hole feature - no holes. Couldn't separate the feature from the geometry.

So I drew a circle, instanced that and extruded. Worked fine.

The 'hole' aspect is of interest because one could capture other features via that.

 

[toohotforme]

OK, I see, I don't have the "Instance Feature" / it is not available. In Command Finder, all of its options are greyed out.

 

[mmauldin]

Should be under Insert>Associative Copy>Instance Feature. If it isn't there, make you are using a role such as "Advanced with Full Menus".

 

[toohotforme]

Thanks again for the help.

Tried that - still not available. Command Finder locates it but it's all greyed out. Hmmm... will have to do that in other ways.

 

[jerry1423]

make sure you are in the application "modeling" and not "drafting" or "gateway"
start > all applications