"angle mate" Bug

[Michel1978]

Hello,

As an old inventor user I used to use the mating condition "angle" a lot. Since its the same as the parallel mate when using an angle of 0 degrees.
Now I discovered that in NX doesn't recognize an angle mate of 0 degrees as a real mate. Well, on one hand it does and the other hand it doesn't.
Because when you do so, it says the part is fully constrained but looking in the part navigator you see that the dot-symbol is still not filled black, which means not fully constrained.

Michel

 

[JohnRBaker]

Since it appears that you are running at least NX 5 (please, when asking for help with respect to a specific function, please provide information about what version of NX you're using) why have you not started to use Assembly Constraints instead of Mating Conditions?

Starting with NX 5, Assembly Constraints are the preferred tool used for positioning components in an Assembly relative to other components. And while it is true that we are going to continue to support Mating Conditions for some time yet, it's being done primarily to support legacy part files. However, for all new work, you should seriously consider moving to using Assembly Constraints.

If after you attempt to build this assembly with Assembly Constraints, you again see this 'problem', then please, let us know.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[Michel1978]

John,

You are right. I should use the assembly conditions, not mating conditions. But i opened an old assembly, containing mating conditions.
Doesn't it give any complications when converting the old conditons into the new ones?
And is it possible for someone who has his default conditions set to mating cond. to open an assembly with ass. constraints?

Michel

 

[hudson888]

Michel,

Just try it you don't have to save if you feel it doesn't work. The software converts most conditions faithfully except a very few cases which don't posses a direct correllary in assembly constraints will provide warnings about that. All of these can be addressed by editing to replace them with the appropriate new method. I have tried and I don't think it was such a big deal.

On the other hand I think we can all appreciate that in larger assemblies you may not wish to change things over where there is a long standing legacy of great numbers of mating conditions. Since we always found mating conditions created extra work to maintain we never cared to much about their use for static components anyway. I also found that the angle mating condition was useful for annimations but painful in that it occasionally flipped to the wrong direction and once badly behave resisted attempts to correct it until it would be deleted and recreated anew. Perhaps assembly constraints will prove more relaible in that regard, but I have been resting my annimation projects and haven't tried much lately.

Cheers

Hudson

Cheers

Hudson

 

[JohnRBaker]

How you have your defaults set will have no impact on what happens when you open or even update an assembly with Mating Conditions. You can even add an OLD sub-assembly, built using Mating Conditions, into a NEW assembly, built with Assembly Constraints, since (unless you attempt to override them) constraints only live on one level of an assembly at a time. However, if you attempt to 'edit' any of the Mating Conditions or add new 'constraints' to an assembly built with Mating Conditions while the system has been set to deal with Assembly Constraints, the user will be asked whether he wishes to convert the Mating Conditions to Assembly Constraints or not (note that you can only go ONE-WAY, Mating Conditions -> Assembly Constraints).

In NX 5 the only way to convert an assembly is interactively by opening the assembly and performing the update/conversion manually. Starting in NX 6 we have added an option to the off-line 'part refile' tool which will perform the Mating to Constraints conversion as part of your normal 'refile' activity.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.