SolidWorks Rotation of Component Problem

[HPRF]

Hi,

I am having a little bit of difficulty rotating an assembled component in SolidWorks. I have followed the help file to the letter and for some reason the component is not rotating as expected.

I have rotated it using the Triad method described and also by selecting the component and moving it using the the 'Move Component' icon and selecting 'Rotate Component', rotate by Delta XYZ, and inputting the desired rotation angle.

Has anyone else experienced similar difficulty?

Any advice on wether I am doing this correctly or a better alternative for completing this operation would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Daniel

 

[Skrambles]

Are you just trying to get a better look at the part or are you interested in getting it to a specific view to put into a drawing?

If you are just trying to get a better look at the part I would suggest clicking your middle mouse button (clicking down on the scrollwheel) and dragging your mouse. You can then use the wheel to zoom in and out. This takes a little practice, but it's a LOT faster than using the zoom/pan/rotate/roll commands.

If you want a specific view to put into a drawing try using the "Normal To" option in the "View Orientation" dropdown menu after selecting a face or plane. Also, good reference geometry can save you lots and lots of time when you need to work on assemblies and/or drawings.

 

[Bandit127]

I may be way off here, but I suspect this might be the same problem I had in the early days.

If the sketch for a part is initially drawn on the wrong plane to fit into the assembly it can be very tricky to re-orient it to the correct plane. Rotating the part 90° in the appropriate direction (in the part file) is a possible fix but it is not elegant and can still give you problems with the assembly if you are trying to animate it or do analysis on it.

I ended up re-drawing the part on the plane that presented it in the correct orientation for the rest of the assembly in the end.

 

[HPRF]

Hi,

I think you're getting the right idea of what I'm trying to do Bandit, but I'm rotating it on a plane not from a plane.

All parts are drawn onto the one plan for the assembled component and I am trying to rotate it by 45 Degrees with respect to the other component.

It's a device that is being attached to the end of a pipe with a probe protruding into the pipe and attached at the end. It it is the probe component that I am trying to rotate with respect to the pipe component.

Thanks for the reply Skrambles, but I'm not having trouble with viewing the assembled components.

Regards,

Daniel

 

[Skrambles]

Why don't you just use your mates to rotate the component? You can set an angle between planes under the mate menu instead of setting the planes to be coincident, or you can create a new reference plane through the part and use that to mate the parts.

Like I said before, using good reference geometry when the part is modeled will prevent these "problems" and make your assemblies much easier to work with.

 

[HPRF]

Thanks for the advice guys, I got it to rotate...