Adding Mates

Mates create geometric relationships between assembly components. As you add mates, you define the allowable directions of linear or rotational motion of the components. You can move a component within its degrees of freedom, visualizing the assembly's behavior.

1. Click Mate (Assembly toolbar), or click Insert > Mate.
2. In the PropertyManager, select the Standard, Advanced, or Mechanical tab.
3. Under Mate Selections, select the entities that you want to mate for Entities to Mate .
   You can temporarily hide faces to select an obscured face by hovering over a face and pressing Alt.
   The Mate pop-up toolbar appears with a default mate selected, and the components move into place to preview the mate.

   To show the toolbar, select Show pop-up toolbar and Show preview under Options in the PropertyManager.
4. Optional: Click to keep the PropertyManager open after you create the mate.
5. Click to create the mate.
   If the new mate conflicts with an existing mate, the software asks if you want to force the new mate to solve. Click:

   • Yes. The new mate is solved. The conflicting mate breaks and shows with a red error.
   • No. The new mate is created but not solved, and shows with a red error.

   You can use mate callouts, View Mate Errors, and MateXpert to help resolve mate problems.