Kinematics in NX6.0

[Tablor]

Hi,

I'm working on a bulkhead with a pocket door and I thought I might try and constrain my assembly to see that the movement of the door slide and pop up header actually works as intended. I did run a quick search but the only related item I found was assembly sequencing. This doesn't appear to be the correct tool.

Unfortunately we don't have the Motion Simulation application, so I'm wondering if there's something I can do in Modeling. I've used Arrangements before to show different positions, but it would be nice to get there with the assembly correctly constrained. As always, thanks in advance.

 

[potrero]

You can probably use Assembly Constraints with some combination of Expression-driven angular and other constraints to achieve what you want...

 

[JohnRBaker]

If you don't the Motion Simulation module, then Assembly Sequencing is as close as you're going to get to being able to define and playback the 'motion' of a set of constrained Assembly Components. The only other thing that you can do is to create your constrained Assembly leaving the movable parts unconstrained with respect to their intended movement and then simply go into Move Component and 'drag' the underconstrained Component(s) while observing the behavior of the rest of the Assembly. Of course this is exactly what you do when you create an Assembly Sequence except that it will record the movement as a series of 'positions' which you can playback anytime you wish, even if you've made changes to the size or shape of the Components which make up the Assembly of your 'mechanism'.

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

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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

 

[Tablor]

Ok, thanks for the replies. I tried using assembly constraints, but I wasn't terribly successful. I went back to the Assembly Sequencing tool and it looks like this might be more useful than I initially understood.

I haven't figured out how to have multiple components translate along different vectors in the same step. It will do one vector movement and then the other. Is it possible to combine motions in the sequence navigator?

Also, I'd like to move a single solid of a component without selecting the entire component. IE, for a linear drawer slide which is a component in my assembly, to move only half of the slide.

Thanks again, the help is very much appreciated.

 

[JohnRBaker]

The only way to get more than one part to move during a single 'motion' step in Assembly Sequencing is to have the proper assembly constraints assigned so that when one object moves it cause another object to move as well, like links in a 4-bar mechanism.

As for moving less than the entire component, if you have a part which is made of multiple bodies and you wish to act on them as separate objects, then they should really be modeled as different components, then you could move them independent of one another.

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

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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