FAILURE TO SUBTRACT

[Anonymous]

Why, do I get a failure when I try to subtract 8 holes in a circular array from a 12 in. diameter disc? I have to explode the array of holes and subtract each of them from the disc. 

Release 13 on a Lenovo work station.

Thanks

[Patchy]

LIST the hole, if it's Solid then use Subtract, if it's surface then use SLICE

[ITandCADguy · Accepted solution]

You can't subtract the array because the array isn't a solid, surface or region.  It's an array.

When you explode the array, it then becomes 8 separate solids, and then you can subtract one solid from another.

[Anonymous]

That, kind Sir is exactly my point - why is a hole in an array not considered a solid?  I am sure glad that I only had 8 holes instead of 80?  Who wrights this stuff?

Thanks very much for the prompt response.

[ITandCADguy]

This is why we also have Inventor for parametric solid part modeling.

[Anonymous]

Well Mr. Young, I have been working in 3D since Release 10 designing complex manufacturing/automation systems and now that I am very old and crotchety, I am kinda stuck in my ways so I will have to suffer the annoyance of having to explode my arrays, which I have doing for quite some time now.

Cheers and thanks for your comments.

Bob

[Alfred.NESWADBA · Accepted solution]

Hi,

>> I have been working in 3D since Release 10

>> I am kinda stuck in my ways so I will have to suffer the annoyance of having to explode my arrays

Well, the ARRAY command in release 10 did not create an associative object, it did nothing else than copy objects for you. So the result of the old ARRAY command is not a new type of object, it was (in your case) copies of 3D-Solids, directly to be used for boolean functions.

The ARRAY now has the additional functionality to change the values after you created the object (number of objects, distance, creation along a path, ...) and to handle this new functionality needs to hold the objects together instead of making dummy copies.

If you don't want the new ARRAY command you can always use the command _ARRAYCLASSIC ==> this makes dummy objects, they can then directly be used for boolean functions, but the array-parameters can't be modified afterwards. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

- alfred -

[Anonymous]

Hello Alfred - first, you have to be a good guy since you have your dog in the picture. We have two great rescued dogs.

As for ARRAYCLASSIC,command  that seems to be the solution to my complaint.  It does take a bit more care to get things right but it does so what I think is the logical thing, allows an array to be subtracted from a solid.  All this time fussing with AutoCAD and I never noticed that command.

Thanks a great big bunch,

Bob Pirce