Duplicate components with Joints

[jeph_s22]

Good morning everyone,

I am drawing a bottom dump garbage dumpster, and I want to duplicate the bottom door section I've drawn to the other side, so there's 2 halves that will open. How do I copy the door, hinges and joints all at once so I don't have to redraw everything on the other side?
Part file attached.

[jhackney1972]

With the way you elected to model your assembly, the best way to achieve what you want is to use the Mirror command on the Doors and the one frame member containing the hinge halves.  This will not preserve joints but then you can use the As-Built Joint command to put the hinge halves in place and then add one new revolve joint to the door.

You have a math error in the width of your original door which causes them to overlap when mirrored.  I will leave that up to you to fix.

You could have made external sub-assemblies and made this task a lot easier.  Model is attached.

If this answers your question, please select the "Accept Solution" icon on my post. If you have further questions, please ask.

[jhackney1972 · Accepted solution]

I reworked your model to use External Sub-Assemblies on the Doors and I create an Internal Sub-Assembly on the frame hinge bar to make your task a lot easier.  I also corrected the Door width problem as I did it.  The model contains Joint Limits on the doors from closed to 90 degrees open.  If you want to right click and Break the Link on the Door Sub-Assemblies it will not affect the model at this point.

I had to ZIP the F3Z file as the Forum is not accepting F3Z files at this time.

[jeph_s22]

Gooday John,

thank you for taking the time and answering my question. So when you say External Sub-Assemblies, do you mean making a separate file and only drawing the doorassembly and then bringing all the parts together in one final assembly?

[jhackney1972 · Accepted solution]

Yes, an external sub-assembly will retain its internal joints which allows you to place it over and over and the joints will be intact.  This applies to internal sub-assemblies as well.  As you can see in my second model, the Door Sub-Assembly was added twice to the top level assembly and each time all I had to do was add the one Revolve Joint.

[jhackney1972]

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