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In The Machine is the official blog of the Inventor Product Management Team. It is a way for us to share Inventor news, interesting information about successful Inventor customers and partners as well as tips and tricks. From time to time we’ll also use the blog to solicit feedback from users via surveys. This blog is hosted by Garin Gardiner our Technical Marketing Manager.
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Skeleton Tolerence
December 22, 2007, 03:44 PM Garin Gardiner
The other day I ran into a customer that needed to create a skeleton sketch to drive the entire assembly (single sketch layout that controls entire model). They designe wood furniture and wanted to easily layout new projects like dressers although they didn't want to have to build in all the tolerances for the dresser drawers to be able to slide in and out easily. By using the Thicken/Offset feature in the part environment we were able to get create a simple skeleton sketch then add the tolerance to the components that need it later while still keeping everything tied to one sketch.
To set this up I created a very simple sketch as an example of how you can use this.
I then created an assembly with several blank parts all tied to the origin. I then derived in the sketch to each part and extruded the portion I wanted for each part.
The only problem with this is that the door is a tight press fit and we need at least .0625 around the door to be able to open and close it easily. This is where I used the Thicken/Offset tool to add that tolerance all the way around my door.
Notice that there is now plenty of room around the entire cabinet for the door to open and close. My model is still completely tied to that original sketch so any changes it will still update my model.
If you would like to learn a little more about skeleton modeling, below is a great tutorial about setting them up by Neil Munro.
Hope you all have a great Holiday Season. See you next year!
Garin
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