So far, I love solidworks, I personally like a lot more than inventor.
Today I decided to try to put together the kitbot frame, and everything went fine for awhile. now I’m trying to get the holes of the end-caps to line up with the holes on the rails, but it just wont let me mate them. It keeps telling me that it would be over-defined. I have only mated the sides of the rails to the sides of the end-caps. Anyone have some hints as to how to do this?
Secondly, how would I go about adding nuts and bolts? I see that there is a “smart fasteners” option, but I need solid works toolbox for that (I have the student edition from the summer school program).
If you are using the original Kitbot models drawn by me (or any file generated off these models)…
The sheet-metal pieces have extra spacing modeled into them to account for the bend tolerances. If you mate them together face-to-face you’ll find some of your holes won’t line up.
I recommend using only hole-to-hole mates, everything should go together much smoother.
Try deleting your face-to-face mate, and see if things are happier.
Let me know if you have any other questions…
Good Luck!
About the mating, you probably mated the two sides as “coincident”, which means the two faces want to be in the same plane. Now, when you try to mate them at the holes, one of them wants to shift, but since the other mate won’t allow it to move, there is a conflict. Change the mate type of the two faces to “parallel”, and then you should be able to mate the two holes as concentric.
About the smart fasteners, you can enable the toolbox by going to Tools->Add-ins and selecting Toolbox and Toolbox Browser. If you check “Start-up” they will be enabled every time you open solidworks. I recommend doing that, as the toolbox is extremely useful (check out the gears in the Toolbox, they make my life soooo much easier :D)
I’ve been playing with the smart fasteners tool, but I can’t figure out how to get it to fasten only one set of two holes. Whenever I select a hole to fasten, it makes one really long fastener that goes through all the holes that line up with that hole. For example- in trying to fasten the end cap to the top of the rail, it makes one bolt that goes through the end cap, then the rail, then the other side of the rail, then the other side of the endcap. How can I go through just the first two?
I was off judging Battle Cry at WPI yesterday and didnt get back to you sooner. Here is a link to a movie on how to credit Kitbot. Chassis Assembly Instructions
I receated the parts in SolidWorks from the original IFI 2d .pdf drawings. Watch my modeling technique on how I divided assembly up into subassemblies and reused geoemtry.
In my opinion, there were some errors in the imported geometry from the kit of parts. One of my students, Artem, placed these new models into www.3DContentCentral.com. Search for KITBOT - you will see the complete assembly. Our KITBOT is accurate because it is based on the 2d drawings, not the imported geometry. We will not use imported geometry again from the Kit of Parts, that is why we partnered with First CAD Library because Ed’s models are accurate. We are working to recreating the model files in native SolidWorks format. You can download this model in SolidWorks format or any other file format you wish.
You need to add in Toolbox in order to get fasteners. Go to Tools, AddIns. Check SolidWorks Toolbox. Check SolidWorks Toolbox Browser.
From the Design Library (right hand side), you will be able to select fastners.
I love using Toolbox. It saves so much time. I am working on a movie for SolidWorks Robot Summer School. Select the screw you want to use, enter its length and diameter. Select the circular edge of the hole on Kitbot. Keep selecting the holes you want. Then exit from Toolbox. When you are done inserting fasteners, select all screws from the FeatureManager, right-click and Add a Folder. Now Suppress the Folder. Unsuppress fasteners when you need to check for interference or create final assembly drawings and BOM. Marie
Right-click Smart Fastener from the FeatureManager. Click Edit Smart Fastener. Right click on the Socket Head Cap Screw. Click Properties.
You will be able to change the length and size. Marie
Tanis, when working with assemblies that include cylinders, or hole features, you could also turn on your temporary axes, and use those to line up the holes correctly.
(Menu Bar) View > Temporary Axes
Also (Menu Bar) View > Planes will assist sometimes as well (as long as you right click them in the feature tree & view them as well).
Temporary axes, and planes are used frequently where I work where we make connectors to mate & line up the pieces of the assembly, but can be used in any application.
While you are learning about different mating techniques, take a look below where your normal mate commands are & pop open the Advanced Mates portion.
There are some pretty cool things in there as well that may come in handy in the future.
