Building the Full Playground Frame Sub-Assembly in SOLIDWORKS Using Configurations and Mates

In this lesson we're going to create all the parts and ultimately the sub-assembly that makes up our entire framing support structure for our playground. All right and that's what we'll see over here to the left. We'll also include our reference sketch part because we're going to be using the sketches themselves to help to locate some of these bodies in our sub-assembly.

Go ahead and close this out. Please open up your master file. All right now if we go to the top in the feature manager and navigate to the configurations tab,  the configuration manager, you may recall that we set our configurations such that if we double click them we can see the feature that extends our beams into the ground turns on and turns off.

It gets expressed and it gets suppressed or rather suppressed and unsuppressed as is said in the SOLIDWORKS community. We extended our beams into the ground for structural support. For moving forward in the sub-assembly let's make sure that the extended beams configuration is active.

We want the extra long version of our beams. All right once you've done that save your master file but keep it open. Don't close it out.

Let's go to file, new, make sure assembly is checked or rather make sure part is checked. We have to create the parts themselves. All right and just as before it automatically places us in an active sketch.

Let's close it out with this X right here to the corner and let's start importing the master file in. We'll go to insert, part, select master file. Let's go ahead and click okay and instead of setting it in our graphics area let's just click the green check mark.

All right yes let's go ahead and click yes. Let's right click on that part of the feature manager,  go to edit feature and make sure just solid bodies is checked. Perfect.

Now another thing we want to check is did it bring in the right configuration of that master file. It looks like it did. It looks like we have the extra long beams.

They extend beyond where the ground plane would be right but if that wasn't the case you could go right click on that part in the feature manager,  go to configure feature and then in the configurations column of this menu hit the drop down arrow and select the feature configuration it needs to be in. In this case extended beams. If I set it to default that feature goes away and those beams are shorter.

We don't want that so I'm going to make sure that extended beams is the configuration that's being expressed. Great once you've done that we're going to save our work and this is our first frame piece so why don't we call this frame underscore zero one. All right now we need to delete all the bodies except the one we're going to keep.

Let's go to delete keep body, make sure keep bodies is selected and let's just grab this base tiny block over here to the right hand side. Save your work. Now do a save as function and rename the file frame zero two, edit the delete keep body feature, delete that body and add in this angle support piece right here.

Close it out with a green check mark and save your work. Do a save as function frame zero three. Just like before edit the feature, delete that body and grab a new one.

In this case let's grab the one at the very top here this extra long beam. Save your work. Again do a save as frame zero four, edit the feature, delete that body.

Let's grab this beam over here to the left hand side. Save your work. We'll do a save as frame zero five, edit the feature, delete that body,  grab this beam here.

Save your work. We'll do a save as zero six. There's a total of eight of these by the way.

Close that out and grab this one that holds the fireball. Close it and save your work. Next we'll do frame zero seven.

We'll make that this extra long beam that goes into the ground. Save your work. Do a save as frame zero eight, delete that body and select this smaller beam that goes into the ground.

Save your work. Those are all the parts that will make up our frame. Now we need to bring them into a sub-assembly where they will be repeated over and over again to create the entire frame.

Let's go ahead and close this out and we'll close out our master file too. Beautiful. Let's do a new assembly.

Click okay. Now just like we did for the slide, let's select the first piece that's going to go in this sub-assembly. Frame zero one in this case.

Select open and we could place it arbitrarily in space but instead let's go to the green check mark. There we go. Now try to grab it and move it.

You shouldn't be able to. That's because it is fixed in space. When something is fixed, it's another way to say that its origin is mated to the origin of the sub-assembly which is also another way to say its right plane is mated to the sub-assembly right plane, its front plane is mated to the sub-assembly front plane and its top plane is mated to the sub-assembly top plane all in the right orientation if that makes sense.

Now we could right click it here in the graphics area or here in the feature manager and click float and that would allow us to move it anywhere in space but we don't want to do that because it's placed exactly where it needs to be. We may do this for future parts but not this one. Let's keep going.

Let's insert components. Let's go to frame zero two. Just like before, just go right to the green check mark and watch it land exactly where it needs to be.

Great. While we're here, let's go ahead and save this sub-assembly. In this case, we'll call it SA002.

Oftentimes, I'll select another file that has a similar name and I'll just edit the name. It just saves a little time so we'll call this SA002 and make sure that it says frame. Beautiful.

Close it out. Make sure it's in the right folder with your other sub-assembly. Save your work again.

Let's keep adding those parts in. Frame 003. Go right to the green check mark.

That's where it needs to be. We can grab it and we can't move it. It is fixed in space.

Save your work. Frame 004. That's where it needs to be.

Great. Save your work. Continue to save your work as you bring each of these pieces in, especially if they're landing in the exact space.

Oh, this one did not. This may have happened to you already. Now's the time to fix this.

Every now and then, that green check mark tactic may not work. If that's the case,  this is now floating in space. We don't want to right click it and select fix because that'll just fix it exactly where it is here.

That's not right. We actually have to manually place it where it needs to be. Now, the first thing we can do is we can delete it and try again.

In this case,  why don't we try that here? Frame 005. The alternative method I will show you in just a second. Any other floating pieces, you can delete them and try to move them back in again.

We just want to fix pieces for right now. We'll go to frame 006. Okay.

All right. It's zapped it right to the correct spot. Save your work.

Frame 007. It should go right about here. It did.

Lovely. Insert components. Frame 008.

It should land somewhere around here. It did. Let's go ahead and save our work.

All these pieces are fixed in space, which again, is another way to say the origin of every part file is mated to the origin of this entire assembly, which happens to exist right here where that blue dot is. As you can see, our frame subassembly is incomplete. We need to double up some of these pieces and finish out the frame subassembly.

Let's do that now. The first thing I want to do is add the piece that's going to be this long extension that goes into the ground. It lives right there.

I'm going to find the piece that mimics that. In this case,  it's this item here, frame 007. I'm going to hold control, grab frame 007 from the feature manager,  and drag it more or less where it needs to be.

It doesn't have to be exact. Now, this is floating, which means we can move it anywhere in the graphics area. If we right click and fix it, it'll fix it to this exact space, which is not where it needs to live.

Again, we have to mate it to its exact location manually. Let's do that now. If we go up here to the very top in the command manager, there's a button called mate.

Click it. Now, just like move copy bodies, we need to select surfaces, edges, and vertexes that touch each other to create these mates. Well, how about we select this top surface of the beam and we want it to attach to this bottom surface of this beam.

Great. Let's go ahead and click the check mark twice and close it out. We can move it anywhere in space, but it will always,  this surface and this surface will always attach to each other.

Let's keep going. We'll go back to that mate function. Let's have this surface and this surface be aligned.

Let's just click the green check mark once so we can keep it open. You can see it's added that mate down here in the mates tab. Let's add one more mate to place this perfectly where it needs to be.

We'll click this outside surface and this outside surface. Watch it fall into place. Close it out with a green check mark.

It now added that other mate that we just did in this mates box. Close it out with a green check mark one more time. Save your work.

Let's scroll out. All right, that's looking pretty good. Now, if we were to right click on this new piece, we can go up here to view mates and it shows us all of the mates that set this piece exactly where it is.

We can right click and edit or we can click on it, hit delete and get rid of it all together. Let's not do either of those things, but that's how you would do that. You can also find the view mates option if we right click on the item in the feature manager right here to view mates.

Great. Again, save your work. Next, let's go ahead and add this other roof piece in.

I'm going to highlight so I can find it in frame 004. Hold control, click, drag it into the display space roughly where it needs to be and that's good. First thing is I know that this surface and this surface need to align with each other.

Why don't we just highlight this surface, hold shift and highlight this surface and then click mate. Let's watch what happens. All right, it automatically created that mate for us.

Now, if we were to select mate alignment down here,  it flips the direction as to how these surfaces attach to each other. This is one way they could attach, another way. They're facing the same direction, they're facing opposite directions.

Make sure that your mate alignment is correct. If you're happy with that, close it out with the green check mark and let's add some more mates. The top of this surface and the top of that surface will be in alignment.

Perfect. Then this surface here and this surface here will also be in alignment. Close it out with the green check mark.

We can see all three mates here on the left hand side in the mates box. We're satisfied. Close it out one last time.

It's fully mated. Let's save our work. All right, next let's add in the rest of these tall frame pieces here.

We know that we're going to have some go into these four corners. Let's do that now. This is indeed frame 007, so let's hold control.

Let's bring out one, keep holding control,  bring out two, and bring out three. All right, now let's go ahead, select that top surface,  hold shift, this top surface, and this top surface, all three at the same time. Go to mate,  select mate.

You can see it's mating all three faces now. Here we go. Let's make sure that they're coincident.

If this happens to you, make sure that you are in standard mates. We have standard advanced analysis and mechanical. Make sure you're in standard and select coincident.

Select the green check mark. Perfect. Looks like it just did these two.

Let's go ahead and select that top surface and one of these surfaces and do it one more time. There we go. Close it out with the green check mark.

Let's go ahead and open mates again and select one of these top surfaces and one of the surfaces underneath the roof. Great. Let's go ahead and just set all of these corners.

This surface will mate to this surface. Green check mark. This surface will mate to this surface.

Green check mark. One of these outside surfaces will mate to this outside surface. Great.

And then this surface is going to align with this surface. Great. This outside surface and this outside surface will be in alignment.

And this outside surface and one of these outside surfaces should do the trick. All right, make sure you've got something like this. If you need to, you can highlight,  or rather right click on the piece in the display manager,  in the display space, or on the feature manager itself.

Go to view mates, identify the mate that's causing your problems,  and delete it, or change it, or edit it. But eventually you're gonna wanna have something just like this. All right, that was a little complicated.

Let's go back to doing just one at a time. For right now, let's save our work. And we're missing one part in this sub-assembly that we wanna add in.

Let's go to insert components. Sketch reference part is what we wanna select. Let's open it up.

And just like before, let's go right to the green check mark so it appears exactly where it needs to in space. And there it is. We're gonna use this sketch to set some of the locations of some of these other beams.

Go ahead and save your work. We're missing two more of these tall frame pieces. So I'm gonna grab one of them from the feature manager,  click it, and drag it in,  and we'll just do that one more time.

And we'll just mate these one more,  we'll mate these one at a time. All right, first things first. Let's grab this surface and mate it to the underneath surface of our roof.

Awesome. And then maybe this surface is in alignment with this surface, cool. And let's just close the entire thing out.

Now, it's almost fully mated,  but we have to set it in this direction. Where is it gonna live? And the answer is right inside of that square on our sketch. So I'll show you how we can do that.

If we go to mate, select a corner of that sketch,  and the edge that aligns with that sketch,  and make sure it's a coincident mate, here you go. Ooh, interesting. Another thing we could try,  selecting a line from that sketch,  holding shift, selecting the side of that piece.

There we go, that mate should work out fine. Try to mimic this mate. Beautiful.

All right, last but not least,  I believe this is gonna be in a perfect alignment with this,  but I'm just gonna make sure by looking at an existing sub-assembly. I'm gonna open one that I've worked on recently. Yep, that is the case.

That beam lives right in alignment with that other center beam. I'll close that out. So, in your own part file,  if you want, you can go ahead and eyeball hide the sketch.

Select that surface and this surface, mate them together. Get the top of this beam and the bottom of that roof,  mate those together. Drag this over where it needs to be,  this inside surface with this inside surface.

Close it out with a green check mark,  and there we have it. There you go. Your six tall beams should be in alignment with each other,  from that side and that side.

This smaller beam is not necessarily in alignment. That's how we designed it. So, don't be disconcerted if you see that happening.

Why don't we go ahead and set the other small beam where it needs to go? This is frame 008. We'll click it and drag it into our graphics area. This surface and this surface are going to align to each other.

That's a coincident relationship in the standard tab. This top surface and this top surface will be in alignment. Close that out.

Let's open up our eyeball,  and then let's bring this outside surface of that beam to this outside surface of this beam. It looks like it falls right in that corner. That's exactly where we want it.

We'll close it out with a green check mark. All right, save your work. We are doing a lot in this video.

All right, there's a couple pieces we're missing. First, we need to mirror this on the other side here,  and we'll actually just bring those in and mate them again. And then we're going to bring another angle board here and place it in this spot right there.

Why don't we do that first? This is frame 002. We'll click it and drag it right in there. And let's get this angle just right.

So I'm going to get that bottom surface and mate it with this inside surface of this beam. I'm holding shift and selecting both at the same time. Selecting mate, great.

Now, let's grab this surface and this surface. Oh, and you can see it mated the surfaces,  but they're not facing the right direction. They're facing each other.

I want them facing the same direction. So I'm going to hit mate alignment. This may have been an issue that you had in your own part or perhaps not.

I'm just correcting it because it occurred in my own assembly file. I'm going to select this surface and this surface. If you weren't able to get this just like this,  you can go to these mates,  highlight some of the ones that are giving you problems,  delete the faces and recreate the mate.

You can also mess with the mate alignment on some of your mates in case the alignment is incorrect. I'll leave that up to you. All right.

Once you've done that, close out the menu altogether. Save your work. All right, now just two more blocks to bring in.

Let's bring this one first. That's frame 001. Place it more or less where it needs to be.

Go to mate. This surface and this surface will mate. This bottom surface and this bottom surface will also mate.

Just going to drag this over here. That inside surface and that inside surface will mate to each other. All right, that is fully mated.

I can't click it and drag it anywhere. Last but not least, one more angle piece. Frame 002.

Drag one of those in. I know this surface and this surface are going to mate to each other,  but they're not going to mate like that. I'm going to switch the mate alignment.

All right, perfect. Green check mark. This surface and this surface.

Beautiful. And what am I missing? Ah, yes. This surface and this surface.

All right, go ahead and save your work once you've brought your assembly to this space. If you want to double check,  go ahead and open up your ViewCube and take note of how everything is lining up with each other. Again, this small beam and these center beams don't have alignment.

That is okay. That's how we designed it. All right.

In fact, I'll close it out. There we go. All right, beautiful.

In the next video,  we're going to continue with our sub-assemblies and exploration of mating and sub-assemblies.