Making your Cylinder Assemblies

When you download a cylinder from a manufacturer it comes in as an assembly with 10-15 parts.  If you did a direct insert into solidworks then the assembly comes in with the parts fixed.  If you want to move something then you have to mate everything in the assembly, which is tedious at best, frustrating if you've done this 4 times today!

Have no fear my loyal fans!  I've been frustrated by this same problem a couple years ago and have been refining my methods!  First I saved the assemblies as a part, but then I had to do it over again because the cylinder stroke was too short or too long.  So I had to improvise by doing my design w/ sketches.

So here's what to do:

1/ Download your favorite cylinder.

2/ Open the step file and let solidworks do its thing.

3/ Save the assembly.

4/ Hide everything in the assembly (shortcut: hover your mouse over the part you want to hide and press "tab".) EXCEPT for what you're after.

5/ File->save as (select part, and all components).

6/  Your saved file now contains everything in the assembly that's visible.

7/  You want to have 2-3 files: the cylinder body, the cylinder piston, and the cylinder rear-clevis bracket.

8/ Open all of those files and make an assembly out of those 2-3 files.

This is easier than having to mate 10-15 parts in the standard assembly that comes out of the step file.

I've also included Part 2 of the combined forces/moments article.  In this I place the cylinder we sized and find out how large of a force we can apply to the target.

 

Richard McAfee

Principal Engineer at Texas Hydraulics, Inc.

7 年

Good explanation; well done, Dmitry.

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