I just installed Eneroth´s Solid Tools on SU Pro 2021 running on macOS Big Sur, in the hope that it would not break my component when subtracting other components from it, like the native tools. But it seems to break, nevertheless.
So, I have this plywood plate DC that can have its width adjusted with user input in Component Options.
I also have these cutting pins I want to subtract from it. But after the first pin is subtracted, something is altered in this plywood component and it is no longer considered a solid. Still a component, but no volume shown in Entity Info and Eneroth´s Solid Tools refuses to work with anymore, saying it is not a ´solid output´.
I did test the component with Solid Inspector 2, correcting an inverted face issue, but this does nothing for solving my problem.
I have attached the file in question.
Does anyone know what is wrong? Please let me know what I can do to fix this forskaling - malthus - ringmursserie.skp (2.9 MB)
The Solid Tools, whether native or other, effectively create a new definition when they modify a component so it should be expected that they would break Dynamic Components.
Hello Dave and thank you very much for an extremely quick reply
So what you are saying, is that solid tools should not be used on any Dynamic Component, since they will break?
Your answer effectively rests the OP.
This may be for a a different forum category, but please let me follow up and elaborate on my root goal. I want to create a master file with variations of formwork models, sharing components. I wanted to use this plywood component to create various widths of formwork modules, each of them with holes at both sides, with the same distance (150mm) from the top/bottom edge.
My intention was to take this DC plywood with cutting pins and make copies with different widths and in one smooth operation subtract the pin components from all these. If I for some reason wanted to change these module holes later, I thought I could get away with changing only one of them, propagating the results to all the others.
Q1: Do I need to make this a regular component, without adjustable attributes?
Q2: Is there a way to make to component copy links to work on these plywood boards, even if they have variable widths?
Yes. I think so. At least if you want to be able to use the Solid Tools (or Eneroth Solid Tools) to add the holes.
I think you could make a DC which is a nested component containing the plywood component and the holes component(s). You could set it up such that the locations of the holes can be adjusted as the dimensions of the plywood component are changed. When you have the thing the right size, you can use Subtract to cut the holes in the panel knowing you are basically abandoning the DC. If you needed to make a change later you could replace the "formerly dynamic component with a new instance. Select the component that needs replacing, then right click on the original dynamic version in the Components window and choose Replace selected. Then you could modify the new one and run Subtract again.
Another thing to question is do you need “real” holes or could you get by with a representation of them? If you could manage without real holes, you could forego the Subtract step altogether.
this was done this way for two reasons. One is to be able to show the case without any holes by turning off the tag visibility for those holes. The other is to allow easy customization of the case. The “holes” are collected in different components which allows for things like only having holes for hinge screws on one side or the other or no shelf pin holes, or whatever is appropriate for the case in question. When they are ready for actual holes (which are used in the file exported for CNC cutting) they run Eneroth Subtract where they want holes and delete the ones they don’t need.
Ok, I now understand I have to go about this differently and will look into your suggestion on nested DC with dynamic hole positions. I have seen some interesting “hacks” for this over at SketchUcation.
Also, I could probably survive with only hole representation, but I am somewhat of an perfectionist and if this is going to be a resizable DC with fixed portions of holes or hole representations, I might as well go for the real holes, right?
Finally, could you run a check on the OP attached model. It does not break into a normal component after solid tool interaction, it seems to be really broken. I did remove all the dynamic attributes also, hoping it would act as a normal component, but this did also not help. Other components seem to work fine.
Well, maybe not. Having real holes could bloat the file size and contribute to performance degradation. Or maybe you just cut the notches in the component and give up on the DC part of it. It’s not difficult to resize the panel with the Move tool if you need to do such a thing.
I didn’t have any problem cutting the notches in the edges and keeping the panel as a solid. Not sure what happened for you.
As a perfectionist I would suggest you make sure you have correct face orientation. No blue back faces should be exposed in a 3D object.
Ok, thank you very much Dave:) You have been very generous and helpful and I am a little blown away by the response and the speed of it, I got for my one of my very first posts here.
And touche on the face orientation
forskaling - malthus - ringmursserie.skp (2.9 MB)
