Create Distance Mate (DriveWorks Documentation)

Create Distance Mate

The Create Distance Mate Generation Task will create a Distance Mate, in an Assembly, between Reference Planes in each Component.

With this Generation Task you can use any Plane and although naming your Planes is not necessary to make this Generation Task work it is advised as good practice. See How to Name and Write Rules for a Face or Plane in a SOLIDWORKS Part for more information about Naming and Writing Rules.

Properties

Property Name	Description
(Name)	The unique name for this task.
Aligned	The alignment type (True = Aligned, False = Anti-Aligned).
Distance	The distance between the two planes (in model units).
Flip	Flip the distance (TRUE = Flipped, FALSE = Not Flipped). The default is FALSE.
First Plane	The name of the first reference mating plane.
Second Plane	The name of the second reference mating plane.

Example

When this Generation task is added the properties are both static and dynamic by default. See How To: Change A Static Property To A Dynamic Property to enable rules to be built on these properties.

Property Name	Example Rule	Example Result	Meaning
Aligned	FALSE	FALSE	The Alignment type. TRUE for Aligned and FALSE for Anti-Aligned.
Distance	200	200	The distance between the two Mating Planes in Model Units
Flip	FALSE	FALSE	Flip the distance (TRUE = Flipped, FALSE = Not Flipped). The default is FALSE.
First Plane	"Right Plane@Bracket " &DWSpecificationId&"-1"	Right Plane@bracket 9999-1	The name of the First reference Mating Plane.
Second Plane	"Plane2@Rib " &DWSpecificationId&"-1"	Plane2@Rib 9999-1	The name of the Second reference Mating Plane.

Rules for Planes

When building the rule for the plane names, they must reference the generated file name and not the master. The rule must be built in the form: [Plane Name]@[Generated model name]-[Instance number].

If the plane is in the top level assembly, only the plane name is required.

The rule must include the instance number, even if there is only one instance of the component in the assembly.

Mating planes can be multiple levels deep. For example, the rule:

[Plane Name]@[Generated model name]-[Instance number]@[Generated sub sub assembly name]-[Instance number]@[Generated sub assembly name]-[Instance number]

would be valid.

To determine the exact address of the Mate Selections:

Manually mate the same entities in SOLIDWORKS and note the addresses given in the Mate Selections window.

When filling out the Entity Names it is important to remember to add a space after the end of your model name before your quote otherwise the task will not work. For example "Part "&DWSpecificationId .

For more information about Mate Alignment see Mate Alignment in the SOLIDWORKS Help file.

Generation Sequence

This Task can be added to the following Generation Sequence(s):

Pre Drive (will be run before the Main Drive Sequence)
Post Drive (will be run after the Main Drive Sequence)

DriveWorks Tech Tips Portal

Insert Component Generation Task

This project demonstrates how to insert and define a component using Generation Tasks, and also how to use Looping to insert multiple components.

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DriveWorks Pro 22 Create Distance Mate