SolidWorks 2010 Bible

Part III: Working with Assemblies

Applying Mates

An average assembly of 100 parts is likely to have almost 300 individual mates. If you create

these parts one at a time, taking perhaps a minute for each mate, you would spend five hours just

applying mates. Any time that you can save applying mates is a benefit to you — assuming you

still get the correct results — because it is time that you can spend doing something else. In this

section, you will learn efficient mating strategies, as well as speedy techniques.

Mating through the Mate PropertyManager

The Mate PropertyManager is the default method for applying mates, and was used briefly in

Chapter 4. The Mate PropertyManager interface is shown in Figure 13.1. You can create mates by

pre-selecting entities before applying the Mate command or selecting them after you open the Mate

PropertyManager. The three types of mates are Standard, Advanced, and Mechanical.

FIGURE 13.1

The Mate PropertyManager interface