Maintain assembly constraint limits in sub assemblies

[mnielsen55]

I've got a top level assembly that has geared parts with mechanical stops, & lower level assemblies that are geared with mechanical stops. I have constrained the sub assemblies with motion constraints & limits at the stops & the sub assembly works perfectly, but when I load the sub assembly into the top level assembly I have to make the assembly "flexible" to maintain the motion constraints of the gears. Since I made it flexible the constraint limits do not work in the sub assembly.

Has anyone ever ran into this problem & have a solution? Unfortunately I can't post the assemblies.

-Mark 

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! I don't think there is a general problem prohibiting Limit Constraint from working in Flexible subassembly. But, the behavior you described here does not sound right. Could you post an example here or send it to me (johnson.shiue@autodesk.com)?

Thanks!

[mnielsen55]

I'm unable to send the model at this time, but here's a screenshot of what I'm dealing with:

The gears on the lower right are driven causing the arm on the left to move around the axis of the pan head philips screw. This also causes the gears in that arm to move (via another geared component with visibility turned off). The problem is, the gears keep moving even though the gear housings are constrained with limits, so in real life the gears would stop moving, but since they are driving two separate components things get out of time, and the model doesn't act like real life. I'm not sure if there is a better way to constrain these components, or if I just have to deal with it the way it is.

I'm probably not doing a good job of describing what's going on exactly... haha

[johnsonshiue]

I think I know what you are saying but I do need to see the files in order to find out where the problem is. So far it sounds like either the component constraint relationship is not set up in the way to generate the desirable behavior, or Inventor is confused with degrees of freedom available in different contexts. If you cannot post the files here, please feel free to send it to me directly. I can set up a secure account for you to upload if the whole dataset exceeds 20MB.

Thanks!