Full 3D chain tutorial with real time movement | Autodesk Inventor

oh hey I didn't see you there oh what's that you say is that a chain and two sprockets and does it work yes it does all right enough of that we're going big dick on invented a date we're doing a chain and we're doing sprockets and we're gonna do it right because your boy does it right and we do it right around here so with seeing other tutorials I mean I've done it myself I've googled around I've looked at other tutorials out there that show how to model chap to be fair I haven't looked at them all so if there someone else that's done this I do apologize but this is all my work but I've seen other tutorials that do chains right but they only move in inventor studio and that's like I fair enough but we do it right around here we want to mimic some real-life and we're going to do that we're going to do that right here and you might be thinking no it can't be done it can't be done you cannot get a chain to go around there and then down here and then around there it just can't be done it can't be done sir oh really oh really is that right is that a fact is that a true story well sit back and behold and be blown away in the turbulence of its magnificence look at that yeah oh yes oh it's so good it's so good it's so good right let's go the other way let's go the other way it works on one oh but it's a work on the big dick does it work on the big one let's have a look oh how do that do that oh you yes it does yes it does everything and well you must have constraints driving constraints driving constraints driving parameters driving and export or the spreadsheet linked to a parameter linked to an ID property driving to constraint blah blah blah no no I don't know this is legit this is legit motion and legit movement so what I'm going to do now just to prove this is we're going to do a half section and we're going to cut through the middle so a slicing through the middle plane so we're going exactly bang on through the sprockets and through the chain as you can see and then we're going to look sidon so we can see right that's that outer diameter there that is the outer extent of the chain link where it makes contact with teeth and what we're going to do is we're going to witness the internal magnificence and watch this oh look at the vacant contact look at it turning the cog odds so good that is so deliciously satisfying I can't even explain it is so good and then it breaks obviously obviously it's going to break it should flick out of it any second what you can flick out the Quan Quan there you go there we go and then as it exits as it exits let's do it slowly let's do it slowly Korie you can do it there you go oh it's so good is so satisfying all right enough enough of the madness let's come out with a section view so I'm going to show you how to do this and what I would say though what I would say beforehand is look didn't even know it did that woo you write what I say beforehand is ask yourself the question right if you mean there are people watching this then you model change have a penis to it many times in the videos that I've done already and you probably come across this because you want to model Chen you probably saw the thing come on get on with it man get on with it I want to see how they did it I know sorry patience you know this tutorial ask yourself this question do you absolutely need to do this because it's not easy for one and secondly there's many ways of doing it each method that you do that mimics a real-life chain movement is going to be a pain in the arse it doesn't work perfectly invent is not designed to handle this sort of complicated movement it's not it really isn't you models a man to be fully constrained yeah you have a bit of movement here in there but a slight edge going on a bit of you know a bit of friction here and there but it's not meant to you know it's not an animation package it's not meant to do this sort of thing when you have movement like this you have so many constraints interacting with each other so many calculations going on as you're pulling and dragging you've got mate constraints between axes check see if they're still able to solve you've got face-to-face constraints you've got surface constraints you've got then you've got the thing hitting the cog and then you've got it calculating that and then as it's doing that it's pushing some it's pushing the COG around trying to solve its constraints and then it's seen if the clash works and is so much going on that it gets to a point where it just stops it'll just stop even though right for example this chain physically can and should move all the way around this cog it just stops you know it I can if I do it really slowly it might work but then it might just jump back for no apparent reason whatsoever and then I'll stop and I can grab it from the other end and then push it and it'll go a little bit further it'll go a bit further and then it'll just then the some of the constraints stop flipping around as it's just done it's just flip the chain-link over on top of itself for no good reason whatsoever and then I can grab it now it's just stop you know you can see it's moving a little bit and then yeah grab this one and I'll push it around and move a bit further and then another chain link flips and you know eventually it'll go around it can move around but it just stops you know it's crackers it's absolutely crackers it's not it's not designed to work like this and you'll find that you'll just struggle you'll struggle in a big way so yes this chain can move all the way around but you know we're only working with like seven or eight chain links here if you modelled the entire chain which yeah that's easy enough to do if you were to then try and pull it around you're going to be in for really far time by PC as well isn't a cabbage er it's it's a really strong it's a core it's an i7 4790k CPU which is really it's not it's not broad well it's not you know the latest gen but it's just as powerful as the latest gen and it's struggling to handle all the computations because it remembers is not meant to do this it's cool as Bor that you can do it but it's not many do it so what I'm going to do is show you how to model up the links how to put them together and then how to get the cogs in place because obviously in order for the chain links to be able to to link with the teeth and be an absolutely perfect fit there's a process and a method to that so we need to we need to look at well so what we're going to do is we're going to model our chain links based on this standard here now you can get the the web link from here and these are the dimensions that I use to model the chain links so I'm going to go through that from scratch it's going to be a bit bore and it's going to be a bit laborious but it is a tutorial and it's intended for you to follow so what we're going to do is we're going to shut this down let's save it just for reference purposes to save up and let's start up a new IPT right so we're going to start by modeling up the first chain link and we're gonna how we're going to do it best practice I think I probably should I think we'll probably should I haven't I haven't actually I haven't practiced this I've done obviously I've done it once before as I was experiment it's taken me a long time to get to a point where I'll where I'm able to finally present it I'm happy enough to say write it I can do this it works but I haven't rehearsed it at all so I'm still wondering where to start with best practice and how to write okay well let's start with a fish so let's model this internal chain link here alright so we'll start with this one so what we need to do is find out what the internal dimension is from face to face that's b1 so b1 is such 3mil right so what we need to do is start by getting this down 3 mil so let's create a work plane and let's let us let us let us offset it by minus 1.5 which means that when we sketch the whole point of the eyes when we sketch this internal face it's going to it's going to retain the XY plane as the centerline of the part because we're starting our sketch 1.5 mil away from that so that's such a good place to start so let's do a sketch on here and let us let us let us let it let us just get the the approximate let's get the approximate shape down right so we'll we'll do that we'll do that and then we'll get an arc from here to here like that and light from there to there like that right there's the approximate shape of the chain-link right that's that that's how you sketch it in vender it is you don't draw it absolutely precise like you would do an AutoCAD straight from the go you just do it first you just do it approximately and then you can see right well you know this circle here this one years it can move up and down and change sizes so it's all over the shop so what would you do is say right well you need to be horizontally aligned to you and then you need to be horizontally aligned to that and then that lines it up alright and then what we can do I suppose is to stop these circles from being you know not equal distance from the center we can say let us draw a construction line between that and that right and then let's put a point on the middle so there should be a green dot there right so that point there represents the exact center distance between the two circles so what we can then do is put a consider constraint a coincident constraint from there to there right and that makes sure that these two circles are always going to be exact same distance away once we'll get some dimensions down anyway alright so I want to do some sizes right we need some sizes and we will go h2 right so that's the diameter of the outer circles h2 seven point one mil so we can go dimension seven point one all right and then we can come under this one here and then we can just link that to that so that one's going to be seven point one as well and then I think I think what's up people can hear that Beeman apologies if neither people that's extremely annoying right so what we need to do is they make these some tangents yet so we can tangent from that and there then we're going to tangent from that and there and then from that and there and from there there all right so that gives us a bit more of a chain link profile all right and then we need the Centers and the center is going to be P to P at P P is eight mil right eight mil so go your dimension so I guess the device I don't know there you go all right and then this year well I don't think about the size for this one so I think what I did is I just made that seven point one as well I think I think is what I did yeah that'll do yeah seven point one and linked over there in fact what I should have done was just said that's going to right that's that and then that's it done that's that's the products that's the sort of overall side profile for the the chain-link and thinking best Prada tell you why it doesn't matter that's just we need to put a pin hole a hole for the pin for the other chain link to go through the middle here which is I was thinking we should we do that another sketch but it's not important it's not really important and I think it's D - isn't it D - is the diameter of the pin pin diameter two point three one only could leaves you could leave room for tolerances and whatnot but yeah it is just a graphical representation we're not that's the thing we're not chain designers right we're not designing the chain itself right we're not going to manufacture the links with just this is just visual representation of a chain which is why it's not really that important that it moves properly because we're not going to actually have it physically fabricated so we're going to go two point three one bollocks are still got construction line switched on turn that off right and then circle from there to there and then link that to there so yeah it's another kind of best practice kind of thing is always link your dimensions together if you can so if that circles always going to be the same size as that SoCo which it is then just link the two parameters because if if if at any point you do think well actually 7.1 was wrong it's going to be 8 then everything updates so you don't have to go and change like five or six dimensions later on and just do it once and then everything else updates as well as well you see that line there I manually drew this arc down here when most people would have mirrored that down to there over that as a sent line don't do that if you if you mirror anything in sketches you struggle to use that line as a profile so when it comes to extrude missing was solid the extrude command sometimes struggles to pick up lines in ED sketch entities that have been like offset and mirrored and scaled and copied and stuff so just just draw stuff if you if you have if you can't if you can avoid mirroring it the only time you'd really suggest using the likes of mirror is if you need a mirror you know you import a sketch profile from another program that comes in is this huge of absolute madness and then you know you kind of draw it all again it's just not feasible then you can mirror stuff but not in this case we'll just draw it again right so that's that and then the thickness of this side profile is T and T equals zero point eight right so what we're going to do is extrude that that and that we're going to go that way because the scent lines about here so we're going that way by 0.8 okay right and that word planes are done with I think so we can turn him off right so that's that side of the chain-link done I think we can now just mirror this over to the other side and it's three meters in its b1 yeah all right so what we can do is we can go mirror its right do a 3d mirror mirror that extrusion and then the mirror plane is going to be that so that's why I used that's why I created this sketch 1.5 mil off from the sender so I could use this as the sent line for this mirror there we go now we go so we should have if just just for clarity if we go a distance from there to there should be three mil yeah good call you are right and then we can go and back in here and then when you draw this sort of body here I don't know what the name of it is Sumi and is its that is d1 d1 is five mil right no problem not a bloody problem so what can come in here I'm gonna go to D sketch sketch on that shall we sketch on that is that best practice no no I think what we'll do I think what we'll do is we'll sketch on the middle I'm thinking I'm just thinking out loud I don't think in reading matters actually project that onto there as to get the center point all right and then we can just say draw a circle from here to here and then make that five mil is five miles in five points something with five more yeah right five Milk finish that all right and then we're going to extrude and that I'm going to go both ways I'm going to go to the next phase and then that should who wrought row row row right okay I think we don't want to extrude the inner profile do we so we go that way to next all right we can't go to next both ways coming Omega do between there and there there we go that'll do there we go boom of that right so that's that one done and because everything is symmetrical right we did the first sketch we did it best practice because your boy does things best practice when you can we've got that as a sentient line right that's the exact center line of the link and then we've got that as a center line all right there and then that is the sound like that's how you do it right go watch my video about best practice start the model and that is exactly why that's why we do it so now that we've got a centerline we can take this feature here we can mirror that mirror plane that boom have some of that that swag Billy in the house you right I think that's it done I think that's that chaining done right let's save this before it crashes and we lose all that work right there's the existent part that I've used so that I did for the demo part that starts what I'll do it up so call this TFI demo chain alright and we'll save it now so we'll call this demo think I'm sorry like these this is a mechanical keyboard it's probably extremely loud but it's very satisfying to type on right it's a cast iron chain I believe could be wrong so we're going to change the material to cast iron and say that right I suppose what we could also do is put some thirds on it just to make it look a little more realistic you don't have to but fill it let's just let's change the radius to 0.1 because this is a very small model and will fulfill it dot dot dot dot dot that and that and that I should do shouldn't it okay that's looking pretty mint oh yeah right save him again because we like to overdo that and what wouldn't you do now is we need to model the second link which is this larger link here which sort of couples the smaller links together and this is well this is where we go big dick again this is where we start to and this is I'm going to do something which I haven't covered on the channel yet which is another way of starting to model so we're going to do a new part and you have to bear with this year when explain why we're doing this in a second right you're going to go to manage then we're going to select derive and then we're going to select the link with just model demo link and we're going to drop it into the model and we're going to are we going to keep everything in parameters and I would don't hear any of them do it really commit all right we're going to bring it in as a serve as a work surface and and then yeah I'll do okay bring that in right so the whole point of this right the whole point of bringing this this model in through as a drive part is the second chain link right the larger chain link is it's flush it's like essentially it's size is based on the smaller chaining right it's its face is sort of flush to the outer face of this one here so rather than start a new part file and just model this sort of blindly what we can do is we can model this one around this one because we know exactly where that the plate needs to be it needs to be on the outer face of the smaller chain link so what we can do is we can say right let's start sketch on here and then we can project through maybe wasn't a good idea to fill at it yet and then use these edges here as the profile for the outline and then we can project through should we project through that one there or that one nothing is that one there right on there and then that on there on the finish sketch right so yeah the whole point of that is just can we turn him off yes we can now that is allowed us to project through the sketch from the first link that we create so we don't have to sketch it all up again we don't have to put the dimensions all out again this the side profile for this chain link is now adaptively and parametrically linked to the first chain link so if I do go back and change the size of the first chain link we've used those edges to build this chain link so everything's linked together hopefully that makes sense is kind of not really any other way I can store simplify that down bar should hopefully make sense let's turn him back on for now and then what we can do is extrude this through and then it's still going to be nor point eight not point eight thickness okay and then we can mirror and you might be thinking but this chain links meant you know that circle as meant to be there because the link together it doesn't matter it honestly doesn't matter because when we use this chain link in the actual chain itself when we build the chain links together you won't see this part here because we brought through as a surface so this bit here is here purely just to build this side plate and then we can mirror that and then working for a mirror plane we can use the centerline again because we're the dog's nut we did it properly so we can mirror that around their horse so good isn't it it's so good right I think I think we can turn this one off now we don't need him anymore and then the final thing we need is the pin that goes through the link which is it's just an extruded it's just an extrusion isn't it really so we've got D - it was actually what we need is the length of this or L that's the length of the pin and that's eight point two right this is where we will use the middle plane so what we'll do is we'll go sketch there hit f7 just a slice Duke so don't get the other side of the chain link in the way and then we'll project that onto there and then yeah we'll just do one at a time and then we'll just use that actually that's all we need and then what we can do is extrude him both ways by Jesus Christ I forgot already eight point two eight point two eight point two okay point Duke there we go look at that boom and then we can mirror that around that so this is this is following best practice now what a lot of people would have done and this is kind of waffling on over when I created this sketch for the pin most people would have created two circles and done the two pins with one sketch it's not that isn't best practice although in a very simple case like this it doesn't make that much of a difference it's just best practice dude I'm no I'm saying that word a lot but it it is it is best practice to keep your sketches as simple as possible and the rule is a sketch per feature that is one feature and that is a second feature it is it's separate bit of geometry it's a separate feature so you would have a sketch for this one and then if you needed to you could have had a sketch for that one but in fact we could we could get the same job with the mirror so if you can create something using a pattern or a mirror do that instead of having loads of sketch objects sketch entities are harder to manage than 3d features because you can just go all edit that feature as opposed to right which ability because when your models massive by which sketch was that pretty thing and then you've got your sketch and if you've got a massive clustered close to fog of sketches with lots of stuff in it it's hard to find what you need to edit anyway I'm rambling again right so now we're gonna just put some fill it's on and we're now ready done so we're going to come back in here zero point one and then we can fill it that not that not now let's put a filler on him him him and him and I think we're done you could put hair I guess if you wanted to I'm not gonna there we go and then we're going to make this one cast iron as well and then we're swag Billy again whereas iron cast there we go you that is looking absolutely mint right save it so now this is going to be demo a solid dog demo link to color what you want and got out out a link in color whatever you want me there we go so there's off there's a second link and then demo chain there's our first link so we've now got them both modelled okay okay what next right that's just again save him before we do anything else right what we're going to do is we're going to start a new assembly and we need to need to get the sprockets right so when you get those those models with the teeth on them and this is this is where we do a little bit of trickery and I know I'm doing this from an empty template and your chances are you've probably got something already with existing model and geometry in it I don't know that you can sort of do the same process and once you've got the sprockets you can then move them and put them into another assembly you'll see what I mean in a bit so we're going to start a new assembly then we're going to go to the design tab right these are the these are the design accelerators so there's tons of them here I've got a couple of videos on some of these I built a connection and frame generator and stuff like that but we're going to use the power transmission so we're going to select the drop-down arrow here and I'm going to go to roller chains and it's going to ask you to save your assembly so we're just going to call this unknown test and this is where you start getting your hopes up you do when you start messing around with inventor you start getting your hopes up at this point or chains chains are yes and then it completely throws you at in the US I Armand so for the chains the chain standard that we've used is this one here it's the ISO 6 or 6 mm for short pitch transmission precision roller chains EU and it's this one here 0 5 beat - 1 which corresponds to this one here 0 5b - 1 on the ISO standard and that's the one we've used so we're going to select this and then what we need to do is we need to sort of pre build a chain set so we're going to select this little red arrow here and this tells inventor where the center line of the chain set is going to be so it actually doesn't matter in this case because we're not really going to stick with it but we can say drop it on the wise add and then once you do that just zoom out a bit and you'll see it's for some reason I don't know why it sticks the the actual preview of it sort of off Green but that's what it's going to give you as a preview so you're going to get two sprockets and then a chain set and this is where you can kind of almost pre tell it if that's even a word buttons you could there's a preview of your teeth and each one of these is a preview of the chain links and you can tell it how big you want the sprockets to be you can grab the arrow heads and then move them around so you know you can say I want it's so big and then this one here I want this one to be a bit bigger you know you can do that and you can move the sprockets around if you want again you can grab this in a arrow head here and then sort of move that around and then you can grab this one here and stretch the chain and as you doing this you can see here it's updating how many number of chain links you're going to get so we're going to get seventy six chain links in this configuration and you can change the offset so I place that on the Y's ID plane but if you want to offset that off the the Y's airplane you can change that there you can this this isn't tutorial for the chain generator by the way I know this is the but you can go and reuse and if you've already got a model sprocket you can use an existing component it essentially just uses a work axis and then asks you to place the centerline of that path on an existing sprocket so you can do that if you want to right another thing we're going to do won't get off another thing we're going to do is insert chain as right what we're going to do is we're going to keep this as a sketch right we're going to select sketch and might yours might already see solid but but you want to select sketch all right if you're thinking put onto solid butter on solids robot tell you what let's do it let's do because you might be curious you might be thinking nah man I want to see a solid chain link right click okay it's going to pre create this is just a preview of some files it's going to create so the design accelerators in the chain generators it creates an assembly for the chain cluster of parts itself then it gives you a you know a chain part and then it gives you a sprocket parts and stuff so it's just what they're going to call and where they're going to save them and then okay and unfortunately much to your dismay you don't get chain links you all you get is what looks like a belt which is it's no good for anybody at all but it is what it is that's what it gives you all right but what we're going to do is we're going to select a sketch right so just right click on the chain drive in the browser and it recognizes that as a generator sub-assembly so you can just edit using the design accelerator and I will go change this over to a sketch and then click OK right and that's what it gives you save this off right just click OK make sure all the files that is generated is saved and we're actually not going to use this because because of reasons but I'm not going to go into because it would make this even more long-winded than it already is but if you were to place your chain links in here using this here it bugs out it does it it bugs out and it's it's not it's not easy to use it honestly but we're just not going to do that I'm going to assume that you're going to want to build this yourself anyway so but one thing to make a know of I would keep this saved though just keep this safe so you can reference back to it so you can reference back to what standard you use how many chain links you had you know what your sprocket sizes are and that sort of thing just it might help just to keep this saved but we're okay with it for now right so we're going to shut that down and then what we're going to do is we're going to start yet another assembly right but this is going to be this is going to be the final assembly or it could this could be the assembly you've already got that you want to put a chain into so this could be your machine that you've already got and we're going to click place and then we're going to browse to the demo chain and then inside here you're going to find a folder that's called whatever your top level assembly was right so I was working and test right that's where I placed the chain generator in so in that folder it creates a sub a sub folder called test design accelerator and then these are the parts that the chain generator creates there's the two sprockets that's the sketch or the solid belt that we're looking up and then that's the top level assembly that I put them all in so we're going to select place and then we're going to place all three of these into here all right like that what were then going to do is select this part here right we want again this depends on what you're working on right again if you're working on an assembly where you've already got parts what you would do at this point is constrain this sketch into place where it should be right you want this to go wherever your chain actually needs to go but I don't have any other geometry around here I don't have like a suspension unit or you know like a set of bike pedals to put a chain around I don't have that to move this onto so what instead what I'm going to do is go into the productivity area and then I'm going to place at component origin I'm going to ground in with the components so we're going to select okay doesn't oh there we go no actually pick it and the browser rather than pick in the model but going to ground in route it's what it does it puts that at the assembly origin what it should have done ah because right yeah that's because this wasn't pretty bra yeah that's because that wasn't around its own actually right we'll just we'll just leave that there right I'm going to move the sprocket up and what you should see is on your roller chain sketch you've got some axes here so we can use what we what we need to really put that on there and we need to put that on there that's what we're trying to do here so we can use that point there and that point there to constrain the center of that to there in the center of that to there in order to do that we're going to create a work point on there and we're going to create another work point on that dot there and then we're going to constrain right so we're going to go for this sprocket here which I think is this one here is it no okay got them the wrong way around right we're going to pick the center point of that and then we're going to pick that work point yeah and then click apply and then we're going to go for a first sprocket so that center point there it's going to go to there and then apply it's not done yet because these T's are now free to spin around like this so what we need to do next is we need to just get it in the right direction so we're going to go back to constrain and then we're going to constrain the it's going to be it's normally the z-axis but it's probably not model like that it's not that one it's not that one yes it is the z-axis so we're going to constrain the z axis of that sprocket to that axis there there we go and we're going to do the same thing for you deserve access of that one to that access there and then apply right and then now these two sprockets should just spin around in place like that way right all good in the hood right next thing we're going to do is we need to we need to model we need to model a surface that represents that path right because this is where the it's not really smoking mirror it kind of is actually smoking mirrors what I did in the first demo you cannot just drop your chain links in and just attach them to a line and watch them go around in a circle around the cogs it just doesn't work like that obviously you need to be able to constrain the chain links to something in the shape of the path that they need to follow around the cobs so it's a thing it needs to be done so what we're going to do is willing to edit the role of chain itself so that's the that's the part with the path in it so let's just minimize these just so the browser's not looking as messy so double click the roller chain and then what we're going to do is extrude that line as a surface and then we're going to go around the mid plane all right in fact in fact in fact in fact in fact I think what we're going to do instead what we're going to do is stare right we're going to create a new sketch I'm just thinking out loud here I've only done this once before so I'm just kind of pre-empting a couple of things I mean you were a bit wrong before right we're going to create a new sketch and then we're going to sketch on the we need to find the middle of course although this is the problem with not having your parts centralized around the center point and symmetrical is because your standard work planes are bloody miles off right we're going to use the XY plane a thing by is central there we'll go right and then and then we're going to project that all right now we're now going to undo that project that line there and then we're going to project that line there and then we're going to project that in there right so we're burning on this sketch the existing sketch why we're doing that also shouldn't have exited that why we're doing that we're doing that so we can offset this puff up and we're going to offset it by I think it's 2.5 ml I think that's probably fine and this is going to be the line that the chain links follow it follow around and the reason why I'm doing this the reason why I'm creating a secondary line and offsetting it by 2.5 ml is if you constrain your chain links to this line here they're too low down so they actually start day they don't follow the correct path they follow the correct path around the cards but the too low down so this is about right I believe 2.5 ml and that is because D 1 yeah yeah mobiles will see it working in a bit will see it working in a bit all right we're going to finish that sketch and then we're going to return back up the top level assembly and then we're going to go back in the roller chain sketch the role of chain part because I forgot to do something again extrude we're going to extrude as a surface this line here both ways by 10 mil if the size doesn't matter it's this is just so we have an actual physical surface in fact it's probably going to be a lot easier to make it a bit bigger let's make a 20-month right and then return ok that is probably about the point where you're going to want to save this save it and then we're going to save this into the demo chain folder I'm going to call this demo chain ok and we're going to place and we're going to come back up and we're going to place demo link and demo link to so those are the two chain links that we modeled it earlier on at the start the video we're going to drop those in I'm going to click OK right and this is where you start to make the magic happen right I'm not going to model up the entire chain right because once you've seen the process once you've seen how to do this you can then repeat it over and over and over and over again to eventually get the full chain but this is the process that you want to go through right we want our chain link to be central to the sprockets and then we want it to be on the right path so in order to do that when you put some constraints on so we're going to go to constrain and we're going to pick the so it's demo link once that one here so we're going to pick the sent line that one there which is the XY plane of the link and that's going to be constrained to the XY plane of the assembly which is bang-on through the middle of the sprockets right and then we're going to click OK now let's move it all the way down here but we're just going to grab it and move it back so that's now smart bang on the middle right the next thing we're going to do and this is where this is it this is the key bit this is the step that you need to do to get the chain links to move around the cogs right we're going to select constrain we're going to select a transitional constraint selection one it's going to be this surface here selection two is going to be that surface there and click apply we're going to do it again I'm going to select that one to that one there then click apply right for the second chain link we're going to constrain chain link to which is that part there so we're going to expand link to origin XY plane which is a centerline and we're going to do the same thing we're going to constrain it ascent lines you could constrain the centerline of this link to the centerline of that link I would do the exact same job is probably probably is going to be actually more best practice to do it that way right so those two are now on the same sent line and then as a secondary constraint you want to constrain the sent line of the pin through that hole there and that's it right and what we have now is the chain run along the path and you'll find that it'll follow the path around like that so that's what I did in the first video where you saw me do the the demo of pulling the chain around the chain was actually following a switched off surface which was sort of floating above the sprockets in order to in order for this chain link to react to this cog what you've got to do is select all the chain links and the cogs and then right-click on them and then you want to put them on a contact set you then go to the inspect table and then activate the contact solver and then when you drag let's just look site on and when you drag this that's where it'll hit and then move around and then that's pretty much it that's how it works you would then build up the chain I tell you what let's turn off we're done with the path now so we're going to turn off this switch the visibility of that part off actually no or not we're not done without its undo that because we need to constrain the new constrain the other chain links to the surface so we're not done with that one yet right a couple of tips from here on if you are plot following this and you're planning on doing more chain links right do not copy and pay no if this is a bug or not but if you want a place another one of these or you will another one of these demo linked to s don't right-click and copy and then right-click and paste because what it'll do no okay it's making an absolute bullshitter of me ctrl-c ctrl-v okay right alright forget that last time I did that it actually imported the surface we open it up chain link to Arts because I've switch it off here right that's fair enough yeah if that surface in the middle was switched on what it was actually doing was bringing in that surface on a copy and paste but it's not doing that you know all right fair enough very muff fair enough right so we can just leave those chain links in there and create a copy and paste of on there and then what you do is you just rinse and repeat you just rinse and repeat do the exact same thing seed constrain this one here so this is going to be you do start to lose track mind in the browser of which which because you're going to have the 76 chain links at all that's what it said that the chain generator so you're going to lose track of which chain link is which and that's just the nature that'd be so if you do want to constrain this one to this one what you're going to have to do is right click on this one find in the browser and then it's going to highlight which one it is so you can then expand it you know that these planes here are the sent lines of that link there so we're going to constrain X Y to X Y C again not that link there is that link now I thought it was that one there it's not so I suppose what you could do to get around that problem is come to this link here and find it in the browser and then find its center line and then switch it on and then you can constrain and turn them all on to go to this link here and then turn on its center plane and then I'll just save you having to go into the browser all the time and click the bloody folders all the time so now we can just constrain that there to that there there you go and then we can move him out there so now he's on the scent line and then this one needs the transitional constraints on it so transitional constraint between there and apply and then second one between there and there it does help massively to have a 3d mouse I'm using a 3d connection space the exact name of it is the space mouse pro using a 3d connection space mouse pro it helps hugely to have a 3d mouse when you're doing something like this when you're constantly spinning around if you if you're always on the f-4 spinning around then you're going to construe then you've gone back to f/4 this is so much better is such a good little device highly recommend getting one but that's those two transitional constraints but on the final constraint for this one would be to constrain the centerline of that to the pin on the last link and then click apply and then there you go and what you'll find is this year it just works like a charm but that's when you start getting problems now look at the chain links they've all just jumped on top of each other there's absolutely nothing you can do about that unless you can find a different configuration for the constraints that stop them from flipping around that's just a thing that happens you're just going to have to undo it when it happens because it's very difficult to flip them back over on top of themselves it's a thing it's nothing to do about it nothing to do about it right and then that's it that's how you do it you would then just put the next link in constrain that to there and then apply and then constrain that so there and then apply then you just rent a map you carry on gold once you've done that once you finish doing all the constraints so until the 76 chain links once you've constrained them altogether you can then turn off the the work planes so it can come into here and turn off the XY plane there and then that's demo 2 and demo link 1 origin turn that off you can then turn off the roller chain because this is just the path that doesn't need to be on you can turn that off that's just a spur spur link and then there's you chain and then this is the point where I was at in the first video in the first section of the video there you go grab him pull him out and then once he hits here I should then turn around right there's there is another thing you can do which this is entirely optional right because like I said at the start there is a number of different ways of doing this the another way of having the the chain motion is you can create a another constraint you're going to go for a motion constraint and it's going to be called a rotation translation constraint selection one is going to be this face on the sprocket selection 2 is going to be the demo link and then the x-axis and then for the distance you want to put in about 688 and then what you'll find is when you turn if you hold and grab this cog it will turn actually that's the complete wrong way around isn't it so we need to edit that constraint then we want to go that way but what you'll find when you do that is the chain can only move along the x axis because the rotational translation transition whatever it's called constraint is only in this direction so it as you turning it can't it can't turn the chain link around because the direction is fixed on the x axis which is a shame but if you did have the entire chain modeled so you had the entire chain model all the way around you could turn the cog and you will see movement on some of the links but you'd only have movement from here to here which is the extent of the direction and the distance that the x axis is between that part and that part for this part here so that is a rotational try forget the pretty name of a rotation translation constraint and then once you've got that done if you want to be an absolute baller you can then create another constraint between them call it in motion 1 between that cog in that cog there and then that would be that one there yeah if you are doing this one though if you are going to go down that route instead of the physically drag and have them collide turn off contact sets turn that off just makes things a lot more easier a lot more easier a lot easier alright guys I think that's probably about enough I think I've gone on for far too long but that is a full tutorial for modeling up chain links put them together in an assembly and then a couple of options for real-world movement so dragging the chain links till they hit the teeth and just just for clarity just so there's you know this is this is exactly the same is what I had at the very start what we can then do is go into the View tab at the top go for a half section and then select the XY plane of the assembly dollar section through your assembly and then we can go side on and you'll see that actually return the contact sets off didn't we so we want to turn the contacts sets back on we need to end the section view right select all these right click contact set alright and then what we want to do is well the contact sets don't work with the constraints you'll need to suppress these constraints just for now right then do a half section view again between the XY plane and then okay and then look side on all right and then this should there you go right you can see we've got a bit have we got a bit of clearance at the bottom so we do have an a tiny bit of clearance in the bottom between the two pin so that might be good if if it's not what you'll find you can easily change this is go into the roller chain part I know I said I was going to end this but you know whatever go back into the roller chain part and then for your surface extrusion if you edit that sketch that's not very helpful change this offset here the the larger the offset it's going to raise the chain link so you can see that line there that's the line that back chain link was constrainted when we did the translation constraints or the transistor forgot the pity called but that pin is constrained that line so if you increase this here it's going to raise the chain so you can say right we want to make that two point seven and then when we finish that sketch and then fraternité it happens too fast you cannot see it but it has raised the chain ever so slightly above you can see there's now a much bigger gap in between the teeth and the pins so that's an option wait right there is other ways of doing this like I said there's the other documented methods on on YouTube of modern a chain involves creating a pattern and putting points and link in an assembly pattern of links to a pattern in a part and you don't you don't get any movement in the assembly if you do it that way so I found personally this is the best way of doing it if you want movement if you want it to be realistic use another method if you don't need it to move this is not this is definitely definitely not the most time efficient way of doing a chain placing the links and then constraining a path isn't definitely not the most efficient way of doing this if you don't need the movement just I need to say that because I don't want anyone thinking that I'm saying that this is the most quickest way of doing to chain this is the best way of doing a chain in my opinion if you need the movement and you need to mimic real-life interactions between chains and sprockets alright and thank that's enough thank you very much guys if you liked the video please press like if you didn't do the other thing press the dislike button and subscribe and comment and stuff share this around if you can that'd be great so I can get more subscribers and stuff and then that's all good the more subscribers I've got the more videos I do because it just motivates me in such our exit rocks at our Dubai you

Channel: Tech3D

Views: 233,980

Keywords: Autodesk, Inventor, tips, training, guide, 3D, modelling, part, assembly, best practice, Solidworks, AutoCAD, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

Id: G4ZsCWFlvNc

Length: 52min 5sec (3125 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 20 2015