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Hello all! Today I'm going to tell you about the mate references
which are quite useful to speed up the mounting of components in assembly.
I'm going to show you the different levels of mate references in assembly
building a belt transmission
I'm going to put the pulleys (and the belt)
on the ends of these shafts.
To better explain you the levels of "predefined" mates,
I start with a component without any predefined mate:
I see that if I drag it in the assembly
there isn't any snap or possibility of direct mating.
I can avoid all of that if I insert the component
directly in the assembly
so I open two windows and I take the axial symmetric face
SolidWorks recognizes this type of selection
and create the automatic (concentric) mate
But it's something not useful in modeling assembly approach.
Whereas in general, I take the component
by the "Insert Component" command
or by using a mechanical library.
So let's see the features and the different levels of mates,
by INGWorks, a library that allows me
to quickly get components with many levels of predefined mates.
So I insert the SP pulley and I see that SolidWorks
automatically snaps a concentric mate,
I accept it and I proceed with the component choice.
I modify for now only the number of belts
and I use it as an indipendent component
(flagging the check-box)
because I consider the possibility of change
and so the component must not be a "read-only" file.
The same is for the second shaft/pulley:
the simple predefined mate brings to
a concentric mate,
I change to 3 the number of belts and the pitch diameter to 180 mm.
I save it as an indipendent component for successive changes.
Before I define the right position for the pulleys
by the "Mate" command, I select the midpoint
of the slot edge
and I obtain, by the "Multiple Mate Mode" option,
pulleys alignment.
So I explode the pulley in the feature tree and find the plane of simmetry for the first pulley.
The same for the other pulley:
I made a mistake in the selection,
so I run the task again.
So I choose the midpoint as common reference,
and the two planes of simmetry of the pulleys
as component references
and I get the alignment of both.
The assembly can move;
the distance will depend by the belt
that has a "standard" length.
The pulleys can be modified with new features or by using component predefined features
I can resize directly on the components.
Again on the second pulley: I modify the internal diameter of pulley to 40 mm.
I can also model my component as I prefer
but in the case of pulley,
often it's important the dimensions and not its design.
Since I'm dealing with "Mates" and "Transmission"
I'd like to assign a Mechanical Transmission Mate.
I consider the external edges
that define the transmission Ratio
I have to modify them because I refer to
the "pitch" diameters
and not to the external ones.
I appreciate the right mating when it's running.
Now I consider a second level of predefinition in mating
in which there is not only the suggestion of one of the two mates
but also the complete mating of two components
I drag the belt on the pulley
and I see that it is placed on the right place when I drop
I'd assign the right values to configure the belt, so I choose
180 for the pulley diameter,
850 for the length.
In order to assign the right length (and also calculate the transmission)
I should click the lower button and start the INGWorks calculation wizard
but this time it is off-topic so I will explain in a next (dedicate) session
So I place the belt on my pulleys,
I assign the concentric mate between the axial-symmetric faces of the pulley and of the belt,
and the mating is complete!
I specify the number of belts: 3.
The transmission assembly is (quite) complete!
In order to better understand how the belt mate has (automatically) worked
assigning the right position
I open the pulley
and I see that there're 2 features of mate references:
the first is named "default" and the second "BeltMate" .
I find "BetlMate" mate reference also in the the belt component.
I can see that the mate has the same definition.
Such definition is about a symmetric plane
and an axial-symmetric face set as concentric.
So the assembly recognizes the same mate on both components
and the association is complete.
All of that doesn't happen whenever only one component has defined mate.
If I consider a third pulley without any defined mate,
and I try to associate a belt,
I suddenly see that the system doesn't recognize the mate
even if the geometry seems right.
Let's go to create the correct mate references!
By the "Reference Geometry" command, I choose the mate references command
and I assign it the same name.
It's fundamental to be sure it is recognized.
As Reference Geometry I consider the Right plane (because of its symmetry for first groove)
and I assume to get a "Coincident" Mate;
as secondary mate I consider the concentric face
and I assume a "Concentric" mate
in order to obtain the right correspondence.
It's important to replicate the same order.
I save the component and go back to the assembly
and I see that when I insert the belt, the pulley is automatically recognized.
The components are in a new position
because I didn't assign any "Fixing" mate, and the system can change.
This time I put 250 mm for the second pulley
and 1650 mm for the belt.
I summarize the levels of predefined mate:
a type of mate for building up the assembly.
Opening the pulley I can see a first mate reference named "default"
that allows to have a pre-defined mate also when there is not any belt mate, but only a concentric face.
This happened at the beginning when I inserted the pulley
and the system automatically
recognized the concentricity mate.
Then I placed a belt
whose has the mate reference with same name (and the same structure) of mate reference in the pulley.
and so I need a second pre-defined mate (BeltMate)
referred to the pre-defined mate on the other componet to be correspondent.
So, the pulley will have 2 pre-defined mates,
in order to manage more type of mating.
Otherwise, referring to the belt, since it can only mated with a pulley
it is sufficient only one pre-defined mate,
the Belt Mate
without any other pre-defined mate.
Like always I hope you enjoyed this session
and find it useful.
Thank you for your attention and see you soon!