Fun with gears and assembly constraints (NX7.5) 2

[SiW979]

Someone was asking me if it was possible to assign assembly constraints to gears so that they can be animated without having to use the motion application, so I set about modelling something to use as a demonstration (I got a little carried away) any how, if you open the zip file attached and open open gear_mech_assy, you will see a configuration of gears (albeit an impossible one) however I basically created a simple sketch of 2 lines in at the top level and created an angular dimensional constraint called "angle"

If you make all reference sets entire part, you will see lots of datums and basically I have used angular constraints in both + and - variations to constrain the datum CSYS in the gears to the datums that run through the frame.

If you edit the sketch at the top level in direct mode, and make sure the button for animate dimension is turned on, enter 0 for the lower range, and 360 for the upper range and set the steps to something like 100, pick the "angle" dimension and of it goes. Granted I have not got the teeth to mesh properly, but hey, it's Friday and I'm as busy as a builder in Bahgdad so you can perhaps have ago at getting the teeth to mesh. If it was a real part, you would also need to remove one of the gears, otherwise it would lock up.

Enjoy and have a great weekend.

Si

Best regards

Simon NX7.5.4.4 MP5 - TC 8

http://www.jcb.com

 

[JohnRBaker]

Simon, you don't need to change the Reference Sets to 'Entire Part', just turn OFF 'Partial Loading' before opening the Assembly.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

UG/NX Museum:

http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[SiW979]

John I'm with you on that, I was just detailing how, where and what I used to constrain the gears in case people were wondering.

Best regards

Simon NX7.5.4.4 MP5 - TC 8

http://www.jcb.com

 

[uwam2ie]

Hey, asm constraint experts, nice example - I will have deeper look at it. A question using the angle constraint, subtype orient angle.
Are there limitation of the geometrie types to use - the selection doesen't filter in nx7.5.5 + nx8.01 ? Using a hole centerline as axis only working with point as 2nd and 3rd references - faces and edges at the 2nd 3rd references producing error - any advice ? Something behind?

 

[JohnRBaker]

You can also use the Animation routines which are part of the Visualization tools to animate something like a set of gears:

http://s608.photobucket.com/albums/tt169/jbakersr/?action=view&current=GearAnimation.mp4

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

UG/NX Museum:

http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.