I'm having trouble with my sketch pattern

[bnemec]

Yeah. There really is no way to get it to 2 references for the 1 direction (which is what you need) as far as I know.

Off the top of my head, in the past I would just have a line in the sketch to define the pattern direction. Then still pattern the feature but use the sketch to just define the direction, not all the elements.

[zxys001]

..more pattern!

[berg_lauritz]

Not to help pick Glenn’s point apart, because frankly I’m in the “Don’t bother using sketch patterns” camp too, but do you happen to have any good examples of sketch patterns handy? Or does anyone has a link to a >good< application of sketch pattern. Not some VAR blog of “look how to use a sketch pattern” but rather, here’s a case where you’re better off using a pattern in the sketch than trying to pattern a feature or body and here’s why" type of blog.
That probably sounds like a challenge trying to prove that there are none, but that is truly not the case. I’m assuming there are good scenarios like I described, I just can’t think of any. But that’s probably just because I don’t know that much and my experience is mostly in one type of use case. Which would lead to this kind of a conclusion, because we all know my perception >is< reality, right?

I regularly use sketch patterns obviously with the hole wizard which is amazing!

A while ago Dwight posted this amazing insight regarding sketch patterns which made me realize how little I knew about them:
How to Use Sketch Arrays Effectively

I think everybody needs to watch this.

Edit: I just saw that his video is not available anymore. That is too bad. I will try to make a .gif and throw it into this thread today.
Edit2:
So here is something really nice I learned from the video:

• Instead of mirroring it is often beneficial (depending on the design intent) to use a linear pattern instead
• yes, it is slightly more cumbersome than a feature pattern - but if you want to use hole wizard properly it is very beneficial to know
• look at the gif: this way it is way easier to change the pattern to uneven numbers & still retain most relations!
• because it’s a linear pattern you can also easily suppress/unsuppress instances while editing it

Click me, I’m a gif!

[berg_lauritz]

I added a gif. There was way more in that Video from Dwight . If anybody remembers something, feel free to join in.

[mp3-250]

Just to add, performance wise a sketch pattern is a order of magnitude slower than a feature pattern for a cut.
I had a part file that required 9 seconds rebuild a cut sketch that included a pattern. when simplifief and swapped the sketch for a cut feature pattern it required less than 0.1 seconds. 2d drawing views were also slowed down in a noticeable way.

[Bryan_O]

I know this is an old post but I thought I would share this.
I have common features that I use a lot that I wanted configurable
A co-worker started using Linear Pattern > Up to reference and I have found it very helpful. (Thanks Otto. Hope you see this)
I added to his use of Linear Pattern and added reference geometry to make things symmetrical and configurable.
Attached is an example of features that I made into Library Features that have greatly reduced design times.
Additionally, because I’ve shared it with others in our organization, these features have become more standardized.
CAM AND DOWEL (SINGLE EDGE).SLDPRT (107 KB)