I had designed some parts, and after re-evaluating them in Stress Analysis, I realized one needed to be beefed up…substantially.  Thanks to Shakeel Mizra’s class at AU 2009, I didn’t get too far before I realized it.

I added some thickness that was managed by the skeleton, so all the associated parts adapted properly (and without an error); there’s a shocker.  Then I added some reinforcement and cut out recesses in the housing to accommodate these.  This was not completely managed in the skeleton, so it hurt my feelings a bit, but nothing I couldn’t get over.  After I began smoothing the reinforcements into the solid, the Fillet features got a bit large.  This is fine for the part getting reinforced, but on the receiving part, those complex Fillets can come back to haunt you.

Here they did.  I realized that there was a conflict.  But the question is, what is a good way to see it?  If I could just set my eyes on it, I could better evaluate the steps to fix it.

Here is what I did.  Nothing new or exciting, just some down to earth tricks of the trade.

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  • I sliced the assembly down the rotating axis. 
  • Then applied a dark color to the receiving part
  • Now a translucent opposing color to the part being inserted
  • move the inserted component

Now we move the part through its range using manual drag, or even a slow angular constraint drive.  Pretty soon the problem sticks out like a sore thumb.  I just added some additional material removal around the receiving well, and the overlap is gone.