Help recreating this FC project

[NormandC]

which is intrinsic to many 0.16 designs, there are some "dumb" objects where there is no more history, so they can not be traced back to their original roots.

No, it is not intrinsic to 0.16, as I wrote already, they are simple copies made using the Part --> Create simple copy menu.

BottomCase is a simple copy made from the BottomParts/BottomWithHoles04 feature
TopCase is a simple copy made from TopParts/TopWithTopHoles&HPLDW&OW&IW&PH&PBHW feature
Button001 to 004 are simple copies made from Buttons/Button.

The parametric parts history is all there, inside the Groups.

[NormandC]

Here's my take on this electronics case, made in v0.17.

I worked in PartDesign and made three PartDesign Bodies (BottomCase, TopCase and Button). I used a polar Draft Array to create the cluster of buttons from the Button Body.

Some notes:

• None of my sketches are attached to faces. They are attached to the Bodies standard planes, or to Datum Planes. This makes them almost impervious to topological naming issues.
• External geometry in sketches is linked to other sketches rather than to the solid (this is something that was not possible in v0.16). Again, this makes links more robust, but here, the links are more fragile than the sketch attachment. Sill it's better than linking to the solid.
• I chose to move the TopCase Body placement on top of the BottomCase, rather than to keep the Body's placement to (0,0,0) and offset the solid from the Body's XY plane. I prefer to centre my solids to the Body's origin as much as possible. But the TopCase placement is parametrically linked to Pad.Length from the BottomCase Body.
• I made two ShapeBinders in TopCase linked to BottomCase. I linked them to sketches rather than to faces, again so they would be more stable, and less susceptible to topological naming issues (I hope).
• My TopCase Body placement means that ShapeBinder001 (linked to BottomCase's Sketch002) is placed quite above where it's supposed to be. That's because the relative placement between Bodies is disregarded, and absolute local placement is conveyed. To work around this, in Sketch010 which links to the ShapeBinder, I added a vertical distance constraint that is equal to Pad.Length (the height of the BottomCase). This matches the cut-out height perfectily with its equivalent on BottomCase, and is parametric.
• The Draft Array's placement in X and Y is linked to the centre of the TopCase cutout in the TopHoles sketch, where I centred a point on the square to link horiz and vertical distance constraints. So if any edit is made to that cut-out location in TopHoles, the Draft Array will automatically update.
• I added some play between parts that go one inside the other, like the TopCase lip, because otherwise it would be impossible to insert it on the BottomCase. For the same reason I added a minimal distance between the buttons.

Let me know if you have questions.

FC017_DSS SG100 Signal Generator Case_normandc1.fcstd

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FC017_DSS_SG100_Signal_Generator_Case_01.png (99.84 KiB) Viewed 184 times

[chrisb]

Thanks, I had tried that in the past (6-months back) with both 0.16 and 0.17 installed, but they seemed to use the same Config information which was **not** what I needed. If I changed 0.16 to inches, then the next time I opened 0.17, it was in inches. Kinda nuts in the Logic department.

What's nuts about that if they share the same config fiile. If you want to use different config files you can use an additional commandline parameter:

Code: Select all

-u config_filename