Add an object, to an existing component, that will take effect on other instances?

anon30843942 · November 28, 2018, 1:40am

I’d like to add axial bearings to the long brown piece; it is pictured with a green oval.

The long brown piece has a twin object, to the right of it, that is a component instance of it, and was modified with the scale tool, setting it -1, to have it’s drawer slide face it’s twin’s drawer slide.

Is it possible to add the bearing object the brown piece (arm), and then enable to the twin arm, to recognize it? Or do I have to delete the twin/component, and make a copy and drag it over?

Skp file: 017_add object to component.skp (1.5 MB)

slbaumgartner · November 28, 2018, 2:03am

If you open the component for edit and add the bearing there it will appear in all other instances too unless you have explicitly made them unique.

anon30843942 · November 28, 2018, 2:22am

After right clicking and selecting ‘edit component’, the bearings are grayed out.

slbaumgartner · November 28, 2018, 2:40am

That means you drew them outside the component. Close it, select a bearing and copy or cut. Then open the component for edit and paste in place.

anon30843942 · November 28, 2018, 3:03am

Thanks that did the trick. I was wondering it it’s possible to reset the green/blue/red axis orientation? As seen in the video, only the red is behaving desirably, the blue and green are moving diagonally.

I presume the problem demonstrated in the following video, is because the component was established, while the brown arm was at 40 degree angle from the ground.

RLGL · November 28, 2018, 3:15pm

Another way to skin the cat: Drag and drop in Outliner

slbaumgartner · November 28, 2018, 3:39pm

You can change the axes of a component by right-clicking and choosing “Change Axes”. This is often needed when geometry is drawn or rotated out of alignment with the model axes because the component will initially get axes aligned with the model axes. That will create a bounding box that is skewed from the component’s contents. Changing the axes can align them to get a tight bounding box.

You can also change the “drawing axes” using the Change Axes Tool. This changes the red, green, and blue axes displayed in the view and used by drawing tools and the inference engine when they lock directions of motion. Realigned drawing axes can be handy when you are working on something that is askew to the model axes. However, they don’t modify the underlying model axes (yeah, that’s confusing until you get your head around it), just the drawing aid axes in the view. You can reset the view to use the model axes by right-click on an axis (which can be fussy to hit!).