How do you contrain a range?

[Davidpalmera]

Hey guys, I am new to AutoCAD, so excuse me if this is a dumb question. I am familiar with SolidWorks and in that you are able to make a contraint within a certain range of motion between two objects. For example if I have a piston in a cylinder, I am able to make it so it stops at the Top Dead Center of the cylinder to avoid it from colliding with the upper wall. Is there any way that I can do this in AutoCAD 2012? If so I would like to do it in a 2D drawing, not 3D. I want to contrain this range in order to make blocks of retractable supports that my company offers, but I want to be able to limit how far they retract based on the model you chose to order. Thanks in advance guys! ~Dave

[steve216586]

Look into using a dynamic block. You can find help in the Dynamic Block section forum or AutoCAD tutorials on YouTube if you want to go it a lone.

[Davidpalmera]

Thanks Steve, I'll look into using a dynamic block.

[Davidpalmera]

So, I started to use the dynamic blocks and they are right down the ally of what I need, but the only other thing I have to figure out is how to contrain them to a range. The reason I am doing so is because we sell retractable supports and they come in specified ranges. So say I would want a support to range from 52-70", how can I set a minimum limit on the stretch to be 52" and a max to be 70"?

[Davidpalmera]

Alright, so I actually just figured out how to constrain this range, but the newest issue I am running into is that I am unable to define the upper limit as anything less than 14', which is way over what I need. Is this a default setting? Can I override it?

[Davidpalmera]

I figured it out, the issue was the inital length of the support. You are not able to set the max as anything less than the original length of the support. Thanks for your help steve!