chain assembly

[sewy]

Hello mates,
I have a question how to design chain generaly and fit to main assembly. I mean standart roller or energy chain. I have issues every time I try to make a chain assembly. Is also a chance to animate the chain movement?
Thank you for reply,
Pete Sevy,
Konteza s.r.o.
Czech rep

 

[Eltron]

Making a chain in SolidWorks is not the road to happiness. You can create a functioning belt in an assembly with the Belt/Chain feature, but it doesn't sound like that's what you need.

Dan

http://www.eltronresearch.com

Dan's Blog

 

[Synesthesia]

I am with Eltron that this is not very much fun, however I regularly deal with roller chain in SolidWorks. I just create the 3 parts that comprise a chain (pin, bushing, plate) and assemble using standard mates and linear patterns. I've not figured out a way to get it to move realistically beyond what Eltron mentioned. In any event, this is only a approximation of reality as the state of the chain and sprockets depends on the load in the different sections of the chain.

 

[Guest0527211403]

I recently created a model that worked well for me.

I was using an IGUS energy chain, so I was able to download the end brackets and individual links for my chain in STEP format.

This post has some good info:

https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/43093

About 2/3 down the page is a post by Jay Patterson with a zip file attached.

The critical step here is the Fit Spline in the sketch that defines the energy chain's path. It creates a single spline curve that the links can follow, rather than a piecewise curve. This seems to make the chain behave properly.

A warning- dragging this assembly around in a larger assembly made my computer VERY slow and crashed Solidworks when I wasn't being careful.

What's worse, in the end our hose sizes (and therefore our energy chain selection) changed, meaining that at some point I will have to go through the whole process again.

 

[HercalloY]

i agree with what others have posted. Very painful task. It baffles me how such a used mechanical process doesn't have some kind of whiz-bang wizard to make this actually possible at least for weight and length requirements. SWCorp can add another forehead slap to their current long list of "WTFs".


PS. Yes if you can't tell i've been working with (against?) 140 roller chain assemblies! I'd kill for a belt AND chain feature that was also capable of broken chain segments not just full circuits.