Moving from constraints to joints (im so confused)

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I come Solidworks (ie draw components individually and then assemble them later) so this is my first attempt at an assembly.

I am really struggling with moving from constraints to joints. I have no idea how to get the components to move where they must be, it is so counter intuitive when coming from a constraints background.

here is what I want to do in the attached file.

1) assemble the cube

2) place the wireless charger on the base and rotate it so that the port is facing one of the corners

3) put the micro USB connector in the port on the wireless charger

4) add a cord to the end of the micro USB connector that traces a specific path (the path at this point is arbitrary I want to know how to do it)

If someone could show me how to accomplish this or direct me to somewhere that will explain it to me I would appreciate it.

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

@mmullineux, joints take some getting used to, but I think you will find them very powerful once you do.  Basically, you have to think of connection points on each component, and how they should join together.  The screencast below illustrates using your design.  I noticed that the panels do not fit exactly together correctly (the tabs and the slots don't line up exactly), so you should fix that.  I only joined a couple of the panels together - the rest would be pretty much the same pattern - just pick two corners that you want to match together.  Remember, in a Joint, you are matching two coordinate systems together, not two geometries, so you are specifying the entire orientation in one step, instead of using mates to eliminate degrees of freedom.  In the case of the Wireless Charger component, you want that oriented toward a "corner", so you'll need to rotate it by 45 degrees.

screencast:

[davebYYPCU · Accepted solution]

4. After the Joints are finished in Jeff’s case, you create the sketched path, 2 or 3d sketch, and  then Create > Pipe.  

Sweeping the cord face profile off the connector is a second option.

Might help....

[Anonymous]

My mistake was not holding down ctrl when selecting points. So I was selecting the same points as you but I didnt have the face as reference so the joint was not doing what I wanted. I thought ctrl was only when you wanted to select a point that was not on the face (like the center of a hole)

Sorry about my components being incorrect, I have found the issue and am trying to fix it with projecting but when I edit the sketch for the front panel all components after that disappear so I cannot project the line from the bottom panel.

I would like the design to work in a way that when I want to change the dimensions of the cube all I change is the outside dimensions of the front panel and then all the other panels change (and tabs all fit together)

Is this unnecessarily complicated (linking so many dimensions together)? Should I just change everything manually?

[davebYYPCU]

This guy did a series on a similar line, making improvements to his parameters as he found better ways to do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmXiOijHbl0

Might help...

[chrisplyler]

You could build the sides of the box in the right place already. No Joints required.