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You’re driving down a winding road and suddenly your car goes flying off a cliff into a den of wild boar. Not a good situation to be in.
While getting some parts to stay on track in SolidWorks is not nearly as morbid, it can be a pain in the neck, especially when it comes to mating to really curvy non-linear stuff like splines. Can it be done? Yes. Here’s How plus a little video action.
It’s all about Reference Points
Set up some reference points in the part you need to mate to the spline. For example, if you need to mate a clamp to a tube, add an axis in the center of the clamp.
Use Coincident Mates
In the Assembly, show the sketch of the spline and the sketch of the reference geometry. In our example you would select each endpoint of the axis you created and add a Coincident Mate to the Spline.
It’s that simple. Not always perfect, but can make getting the job done a lot quicker. Here’s the video to illustrate.
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I think the most important aspect of your tip is the reference points part. I’m hoping you created the axis using the default datum planes in the part, not the cylindrical face. This way, since you mated the axis to the spline, if the geometry ever changes on the clamp, the mate will still resolve correctly. You could now change it to a square clamp (don’t know why, but you COULD), and it would still track correctly.
Indeed, I did, great point Bruce. Everyone should heed that advice for sure. Using the default planes whenever possible will help avoid errors when/if geometry changes.
Nice tip…. Reference point are a great way to mate parts. Another great tip is to mate parts using the planes.
Hey Al, True… unless your mating to a spline, then those points come in handy right.