Hole tool and sketch - some thougts and lesson learned

[OrjanB]

In Alibre Expert:
I made an assembly that among other parts consisted of a plate populated with threaded holes. The holes were placed using dimensioning with the hole tool open.
To these holes I constrained threaded plugs.Then assembly saved.

I then wanted to rearrange the holes. The plate was then opened from the assembly - in separate window (assy still open).
The sketch belonging to the hole was opened and dimensions edited.
Error message occured telling constraint with missing target.
Has to do with editing part in assembly context? Anyhow, should have worked.

Then:
Part closed - back to assy - part opened as separat file from main window - hole placements (dimensioning) edited (no problems) - part closed/saved - in assy (still open) I hit the update button. Then Alibre hang and I had to restart the computer.

Next try:
Part only opened - hole placements (dimensioning) edited - part closed/saved.
When the assy is then opened: All OK.

Next try and final solution:
Assy opened - part opened within assy - hole tool opened - hole placements (dimensioning) edited with hole tool active.
Then part closed and back to assy: No problems. Holes and the parts constrained to these holes updated as expected.

Lesson learned and not found in the help files:
When editing placement of holes in the context of assy, the edit has to be done via opening the hole tool.
This also indicates that the hole tool could be looked more into by the Alibre team.

I would expect that a sketch is a sketch and not depending of which tool is connected to it.

I prefer to work in the context of assembly and thus not having to keep track of opening/closing separate files.

I also miss an automatic/default updating when a part has been edited and I go back to the assembly.

Orjan

 

[OrjanB]

New lesson learned:

As described above in previous post:
When I tried to edit placement of holes made by hole tool by directly editing the underlying scetch, error messages impossible to undertstand occured.
I had to open the sketch via the hole tool in order to edit.
In the error message there is a check-box: Show popup on errors.
This is by default checked. I unchecked this and the problem dissapeared.
Now I can edit sketch used by the hole tool without opening the hole tool.
This is what I expected from the beginning and I wasted time on finding the solution described in the previos post.
I am using Windows 11 – can that be the reason for my problems?

Orjan

 

[DavidJ]

You've just turned off error reporting. The error is likely still present. Was the part originally created in context of an assembly perhaps with some relationship to other parts?

 

[OrjanB]

The part was not created in context of assembly - was created as separate part and inserted in assembly and constrained.
But the edit was done in context of assembly.
Strange if the error is still present since there is no error message and the assembly behaves as expected.
The error messages in Alibre are anyhow very complicated and impossible(?) to understand for non -programmers.

 

[OrjanB]

More learned…..
DavidJ:
You are of course right when assuming that the error is still there, despite no error message.
What puzzled me was that the assembly bahaved OK.
Explanation: When I experimented with editing hole-positioning of part in context of assy some constraints were made twice and thus generating error message.

Final learning that should be stated in the help files:
When editing hole positions of a part in context of assembly, the editing must be done by opening the hole tool and then editing the dimensions within the hole tool.

Orjan

 

[DavidJ]

The error is about an assembly constraint. Nothing to do with the hole sketch.

I edit hole sketches all the time by opening the sketch directly (that way I get access to all the sketching tools). Have never run into such an error that I recall (so at least not frequently or for some considerable time).

 

[OrjanB]

What you say is correct when a part is opened separatly for editing the holes.
I open the part containing the holes in context of assembly, i.e. assembly is open during edit of part.

Described in my first post.

Orjan