Looking for Joints help

[JonSchaeffer]

Hi,

I do quite a bit of modeling in Fusion 360.

And one thing I have never got the hang of is making my assemblies really simulate working with Joints.

I have watched 3 videos showing how to do this, and I can get it to a certain point but never can figure out the slides to work properly to specific start and stop locations. And the simple pivoting cam I can't figure out either.

Here is an image of what I am trying to accomplish.

Anyone out there willing to teach me one on one with this?

[JonSchaeffer]

Here is the way it looks with the slides closed/

[Mike.Grau]

Hi @JonSchaeffer,

Thank you for sharing your pictures.

There are probably multiple ways how to assign the joints for your assembly and

I might have an idea how we can realize the joint animation with just a couple joints.

Could you may share your design with us and we can have a look at it?

Thanks,

[Anonymous]

Thanks Mike!

Here is the file.

It should be free of all joints I was trying to do.

Will you be able to make a video of how you go about it?

[Anonymous]

Mike,

Quick question...

 I did not add springs to the actual model.

If I did add springs... Would I be able to simulate them compressing also?

Or is this not possible?

[Anonymous]

By the way, JonBoy5axis is Jon Schaeffer

The Jon Schaeffer you see now is my work log in.

The JonBoy5Axis is my own personal ownership of Fusion 360

[James.Youmatz]

Hi @Anonymous,

Welcome to the Fusion 360 Community!

I think I can help you out here! Regarding the spring - I don't believe you can model the compression of a spring (not really accurately or easily to my knowledge). What I did, and forgive me if there were any incorrect assumptions, was just assume that the two sides moved independently of one another. The first steps I did was to figure out what I can make as Rigid Groups. I went through and identified all components that were rigid to one another (so a lot of the screwed in pieces) and made those rigid groups. I then checked to make sure the base was grounded (and since it is in the rigid group, all the components would be inherently grounded as well). My next steps were to go ahead and add the motion joints. I decided to use as-built joints as it is probably simpler in this scenario. I started with the slider joints. I defined what would be sliding. Again, since I had rigid groups, I only had to define the bar moving. Check out my screencast below:

[JonSchaeffer]

Thank you so much James!

Sorry for not getting back to you, I just got back in town...

For the most part you have it perfect.

But I am wanting the lever to be the action that moves the left slide. Not just move the slide and show that the lever will contact the edges

Which I am not exactly sure if Fusion will do this.

But since the slide is spring loaded in real life, I want to be able to just rotate the lever and the slide is always in movement as I adjust the levers rotation. Forwards or backwards.

No matter what position I move the lever.

Is that possible?

[James.Youmatz]

Hi @JonSchaeffer,

Sorry for the late response! I see what you are saying. It may take a bit of tweaking - but I would create a Motion Link. Under the Assemble menu - select Motion Link and select the revolute joint for the lever arm as well as the slider joint for the other component. Then define a relationship between the two (for instance I was playing around with 90 degrees for the revolute joint and about .325 inches for the slider). Just a quick note - after the motion link is in place, try to not to move the pieces too quickly or they can jump around into a weird location. Also, it can be somewhat hard to manipulate these joints so if it starts to get weird, just hit the Revert button under the position tab in the ribbon!

Let me know if that helps!

Thanks,