Trouble Shoot Assemblies in SolidWorks

This is a video of me evaluating a student submission in a Parametric Modeling course using SolidWorks. The assembly had a number of problems at various levels including sub-assemblies and since I recorded the process, I thought it might be useful to others.

[@karlsgarage6477]

Thank you for this video

[@DanAbbott-SMCC]

My pleasure

[@dougc7301]

I notice all the underdefined symbols, i.e., "(-)" in the tree. Do you try to fix these?

[@DanAbbott-SMCC]

I don't fix all of them, just as many as I can easily do so with mates. They indicate that a part in the assembly is not fully defined by mates. In this case, mating the needle bearings is not easy, and not particularly useful. The main reason to fully define as many parts as possible is to make it easier to trouble shoot. That is why locking the rotation of concentric mates was added. It helps to reduce the number of negative symbols. The bearings are not concentric with anything, however, and preventing the array from rotating requires mates that don't mimic the real world.

[@dougc7301]

@@DanAbbott-SMCC Thanks Dan, very helpful.