Use and determine appropriate pattern tools

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Use and determine appropriate pattern tools.

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After completing this video, you'll be able to utilize the appropriate pattern tool required,

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mirror selected components and features, and copy selected components.

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To get started, in Inventor, we want to open up three supplied data sets.

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Circular_pattern. IPT, which is in the top level of our project, clutch_gear_25T.IPT, which is in the assembly subfolder under Engine MK2,

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and our suspension_forks_start.IAM, which is in the assembly subfolder under Bike Fork.

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We're going to be taking a look at the differences between using mirror and circular patterns, as well as copying components.

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To get started, inside of our circular pattern part, we want to note that we've got a single extrusion,

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Extrusion 1, which is 1/4 portion of this design.

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Then we have Mirror 1 and Mirror 2 to complete the full 360°.

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When designs do have symmetry about an origin,

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often times, we can replace multiple features such as two mirrors by using the singular Circular pattern feature.

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We're going to pattern the body, and we're going to select the Origin axis of X for our axis of revolution.

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We're going to set our Placement number to 4.

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And now we've created the exact same geometry using a single circular pattern as opposed to using 2 mirror features.

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This is important because limiting the number of features that we have, as well as the calculation time,

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especially on larger designs, has an overall impact on the design performance.

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Next, let's take a look at our Clutch Gear 25T.

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In this design, we've got a clutch gear which is part of the engine MK2 assembly.

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We're going to take the End of Part marker and drag it up underneath Extrusion 2.

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With a design like this, we can see that we're taking a look at creating just a half section of one tooth of the gear.

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Then we can mirror that to the other side and use a circular pattern to complete the gear.

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Often times, using both features for mirror and circular pattern can be the most efficient way to finalize a design.

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Next, let's take a look at suspension_fork.IAM.

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Often times when we're thinking about mirroring or patterning features,

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we often have to consider whether or not it's an exact duplicate of a component

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or if we truly do need a mirror or left and right hand side of that component.

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For this suspension fork, we're taking a look at copying most of the components over from one side to the other

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and creating a mirrored version of just a single component called the Fork Slider.

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We're going to start by selecting the Dial Elastomer and Shift selecting the Fork Damper to select all the components.

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Then we're going to select the Mirror option.

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Note that when we open up our Mirror Component Status dialog, we can see that most of these options are set to this green,

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which is allowing us to create a mirrored version of the component.

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If we simply left click on it, this will change it from a mirrored to a reused component.

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We're going to go ahead and reuse everything except for the fork slider.

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That does need a mirrored component).

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So, the fork piston, the fork tube, as well as the fork damper.

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The Mirror Plane is going to be a center plane located inside of fork crown and it's listed as Work Plane 5.

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When we select Next, note that the only component actually being mirrored is the fork slider.

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It's going to be saved as the fork_slider_MIR.IPT,

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but we could also change this to be LH for left hand, and we can rename the original fork slider to right hand if needed.

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We can select OK, and now we've created the full assembly with both a left and a right hand version of the fork slider,

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as well as all the reused components that we can see inside of our assembly.

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When we take a look at our browser, we can note that the reuse components have a colon and the number 2 after them,

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while our fork slider left hand has a colon and 1 because it's an individual or a unique component.

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Often times when we're using the mirror, it can be very easy to skip the step of creating those reused or those duplicate options,

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so make sure that you do pay attention when you are using mirror.

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We do also have another option called Copy which allows us to select components and create copies of them.

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Notice that this also has some additional options.

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We have copy the selected object, or we can reuse the selected object.

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When we create a copy of the selected object, this will be an individual new component.

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If we're reusing it, we're creating a duplicate,

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meaning that we'll have a colon and the number 2 or 3 after it depending on the number of instances in our design.

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If we select Next, once again, you can see that we now have a fork slider copy, or CPY,

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which we can rename and change the file name to whatever we need to for our design.

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We'll select OK, and you can see now that we've got an identical version to the right-hand section of our fork slider.

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However, it's a unique copy, which means that we can continue to modify and work on it without affecting the original.

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These are just a couple of ways that we can use things like mirrors, copies, and patterns inside of our parts and our assemblies.