I'm new to joints and confused about the apparently missing Y axis of the ball joint. I've read a couple of posts that go into the theory behind the ball joint, I appreciate it's a complex issue but I'm hoping someone can show by way of example simply how to use it. In the attached model, how do I rotate the joystick around the Y axis (left to right in the FRONT view)
thanks for your consideration,
Joe.
A Ball Joint only has 3 rotation degrees of freedom and the way you had the original joint positioned does not allow for the motion you asked for. The Screencast will show you how to re-position the Ball Joint and how to lock the axis you do not need to get just the motion you desire. Model is attached and I left the wireframe on.
John Hackney, Retired
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Firstly, please always make your sketches fully constrained. Secondly, what you made is already correct. You only need to Ground the block. Now because this joint has 3 axes of rotation it's hard to rotate it around one axis without touching others. To visualize this I added a dummy component and a planar joint, you can play with it and see your current joint DOES rotate around Y-axis of assembly (this I added ONLY for visualizing, you don't need this planar joint at all. Suppress it later).
Now if you want to rotate around Y with your original model; usually you can use Drive Joints to achieve this but at current position Yaw axis is not aligned along Y-axis of origin. You have to first align it by adjusting Pitch and Roll:
