Saving Design Skeleton as a standard part file

[GM_6889676]

Hi All,

I have a few 'design skeleton' parts that include extruded geometry. I would like to assemble these parts in a standard assembly in order to export to another simulation software package. When I assemble the first .prt file into a new assembly it obviously treats it as a design skeleton and doesn't seem to allow for choosing assembly constraints.

Is there a way to save this as a standard .prt without the design skeleton association?

Thanks.

[tbraxton · Accepted solution]

This a bit of a hack but should work for you.

• To create a solid model from a skeleton model

1. File > New > Part > Deselect Use default template >OK
2. Browse > browse to skeleton part > Open > OK

I would not make a habit of including solid geometry in skeleton models. It is not considered a good practice in most environments. There are better ways to capture that design intent typically. There of course could be exceptions to this rule. If you can elaborate on what you are using the skeletons for you will get some better suggestions on how to deal with the design intent.

[GM_6889676]

Thank you, this did the trick.

A little background on what I'm doing...

I needed to analyze the motion of a 3-body mechanism. I thought it might be slick to build this as a motion skeleton (based on a design skeleton) so I could easily modify a few parameters that I was interested in changing. This actually worked out great for the kinematic analysis. I added some surfaces and solid geometry to the motion skeleton mostly as a visual, but also to give me a few extra points to measure during the mechanism analysis.

I've moved on from the kinematic analysis and am trying to do some pretty basic dynamic analysis on the same mechanism (assuming rigid bodies). I don't see the option for adding friction to a plane-plane contact (I should probably make a separate post, or search around a bit more on this topic), but I was considering pulling the .prt file into another software for rigid body dynamic analysis.