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Another feature for replacing mate entities that is more tailored to the specific task is the Replace Mate Entities tool. You can also find this in the RMB menu for a mate (as well as in the LMB menu, but you must be able to recognize it by its icon or its tooltip). Figure 13.9 shows where you would access both the Edit Feature and the Replace Mate Entities tools from the RMB menu.

FIGURE 13.9

Accessing Edit Feature and Replace Mate Entities from the RMB menu

Selecting Replace Mate Entities displays a PropertyManager called Mated Entities. This interface shows which entities from which parts are used together in the mate. To replace an entity, select it from the Mate Entities selection box; it appears in the small selection box below. Then simply select the new entity.

When you open this PropertyManager, the Isolate toolbar also automatically appears. Isolate is a tool that hides parts that are not involved in the current operation. The Mated Entities PropertyManager and the Isolate toolbar are shown in Figure 13.10.

FIGURE 13.10

Changing mated entities using the Mated Entities PropertyManager and Isolate toolbar

One of the nice features of the Replace Mate Entities tool is that you can select multiple mates before activating the tool from the RMB menu, and all of the mate entities appear in the PropertyManager. This makes changing several mates in one step relatively easy.

You can also select multiple mates to edit in this way using the Mate PropertyManager. The multiple-selected mates appear in the Mates panel toward the bottom of the PropertyManager (refer to Figure 13.8 where the Concentric14 mate is shown).

Note

If while manipulating mates your assembly stops to rebuild every time you make an edit, you may want to use the Suspend Automatic Rebuilds option, found at Tools⇒Options⇒Assemblies. As a reference, the Bike assembly example in this chapter has a problem like this using SolidWorks 2011 SP 3.0. The rebuild symbol keeps showing up on the frame part on the FeatureManager, even though it has just rebuilt and there are no changes. This “perpetual rebuild” problem appears to come from the in-context features of the part.

Editing File Management Issues

File management in SolidWorks assemblies requires a certain amount of attention. You have to be careful when changing filenames and locations, and also use the correct tools, or SolidWorks may lose track of where to find necessary data. The best tools to use for SolidWorks file management are, of course, PDM (product data management) tools such as Workgroup PDM (formerly PDMWorks) and Enterprise PDM (formerly Conisio). After that, SolidWorks and SolidWorks Explorer are good tools for users who do not have access to PDM tools.

Using Save options and Pack and Go

When making changes to the files involved in SolidWorks assemblies, understanding the Save options will serve you well. Whenever you want to change a name, change a location, or make a copy of a particular SolidWorks document, you should use some combination of the Save, Save As, and Save As Copy tools, as well as Pack and Go.

The Save command only displays a dialog box the first time you save a document. If you are saving an assembly with virtual components, it may ask you to save the assembly with a name in addition to asking you to name and save virtual components externally. Save is typically not an option for anything other than initially placing and naming your files.

Save As is the tool to use when you want to save the current document to a new name. When you do this, SolidWorks leaves the last saved version of the previous part behind, and going forward, the new name and location you used in Save As will be the one that remains in the assembly.

For example, if you have Assembly 1 and it is made up of Part 1 and Part 2, and these files are already saved to your local hard drive, but you want to rename Part 1 as 875003 base structure.sldprt, then you can use the Save As command to do this.