SolidWorks 2010
Chapter 10–Assembly
In this chapter we will assemble the parts for the Drill Vice Assembly.
Please note. Read the text of the notes carefully, the pictures are only there as a visual check.
Assembling Parts
From the menu at the top of the screen, select the New icon and select the Assembly option, as shown below circled in red.
The Begin Assembly menu will open, as shown below. From this menu you need to select the Browse button, as shown on the right circled in red.
It is important that you select the Drill Vice Body, as shown below, as the first part to add to the assembly as it will be locked into position and all the other parts will be aligned to it. If you select another part first, there is a very good chance that the isometric view of the assembly will be wrong and you will need this to correct for the exploded assembly which will be made in the next chapter.
Once you have selected the Drill Vice Body and clicked on the Open button, you will see you have the model of the Drill Vice Body in the assembly space, but attached to your cursor. It doesn’t matter where you put this first part down in the assembly, as it will automatically position itself anyway. So click the left mouse button to drop the Drill Vice Body into the assembly, as shown below.
Now you can add the rest of the parts in any order, one at a time adding the Mate to constrain each as you go, or insert all the components then Mate each of them.
To insert the next part go to the Insert Components button at the top left of the screen, as shown below.
The Insert Components menu is very similar to the Begin Assembly menu in that you need to use the Browse button to navigate your way to where you filed the next part of the Drill Vice, as shown on the right.
If your second component aligns correctly with the Drill Vice Body, well done, you can skip this next step. If not then you will need to rotate it roughly to the correct position before applying the Mates to constrain it. To do this select the pull down arrow at the bottom of the Move Components button and select Rotate Components, as shown below circled in red.
Now select your second component and hold the mouse button down while you rotate it to approximately the right orientation, in this case it’s the Drill Vice Adjuster Screw, as shown below.
To constrain the parts so that they fit together, we are going to use the Mate command. Select the Mate button from the top tool bar, as shown below.
You need to imaging that the mate command is like digital glue, it will stick surfaces, curves, faces and edges together provided there is commonality between them and provided the mate doesn’t contradict another one that has already been applied.
The Mate menu is shown on the right and contains the various mate options that are available. If an option is greyed out, it is because it is not available to you for the type of surface, curve, face or edge that you have selected.
The most commonly used mate is the Coincident one at the top of the list.
The blue rectangular box shows the entities that you have selected to mate. If you select the wrong one by mistake, highlight it in this box and press the Delete button on the keyboard.
As you select a feature it will change colour, as shown below. In this case the threaded shaft of the Drill Vice Adjuster Screw has been selected.
When you select the second feature, in this case the M12 threaded hole in the front of the Drill Vice Body, the parts will move together to show the default mate, as shown below.
If the parts don’t move together it is most likely that the 2 features you have selected are incompatible to mate.
If it does work correctly, as shown above, the pop-up menu will show you the mate options, as shown below. The default mate has been selected as Concentric, which is correct for this application and when you are happy with what you have selected, click the green tick to accept it.
If you are not happy with the selection, you may select the blue curved undo arrow to delete the current mate selections.
So round features will align nicely with other round features. The Drill Vice Adjuster Screw can now be moved in and out and rotated around to mimic how it would move in reality. Although parts will need 3 mates to fully constrain them, this is the only mate required for this part.
Next insert the 1st of the 2 Drill Vice Jaws, as shown below.
Now rotate it to the correct position as previously described and as shown below.
You will need to apply 3 mates to the Drill Vice Jaw. The first to align the screw hole at one end of the Drill Vice Jaw with the appropriate hole on the Drill Vice Body, as shown below.
The second is to align to other screw hole at the other end of the Drill Vice Jaw, as shown below.
The final mate is the fix the top surface of the Drill Vice Body to the underside of the Drill Vice Jaw, as shown in the series of pictures below.
The fully mated Drill Vice Jaw should look like the picture below.
Now insert the rest of the components, as shown below.
Once mated your Drill Vice Assembly should look as shown below.
CAD – Paul Mulder – Chapter 10
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