Vertically align components

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I have two components(cylinders) which are not on the same plane or connected in any way. The lower component is grounded and the second component is floating 30mm above it, slightly to the right and at an angle. How do I vertically align the 2 components so that their centres lie exactly above each other and they are parellel to each other? 

I have tried:

1) Aligning components - this seems to just align them to be parellel to each other but not centered above each other.

2) Placing joint origins at the centre of each cylinder and then doing align components. This doesn't work.

3) Select the Y axis and the second component and do align components. This doesn't work either, seems like it doesn't align to an axis this way.

Please help

[jakefowler]

Hi @Anonymous,

There are a couple of ways to achieve this with the Align tool. 

The simplist way is to use the snap points that appear when hovering over a component/body. When you hover over the underside of the displaced cylinder, you should see a snap point at its centre. Click this, then click the corresponding point on top of the grounded cylinder. The 1st cylinder should align to the 2nd, and those points should snap together.

Your method 3 should also work; one issue perhaps is the fact that hovering over a cylindrical face will align using related snap points, not the face itself. If you hold Shift while picking the faces, snap points will be ignored and you'll be sure to be selecting faces. 

If shown both of these methods in the video below; do either/both of these work for you? If not, let us know and we'll dig deeper.

Thanks!

Jake

[Anonymous]

Hi Jake,

Thanks for the reply! However, this isn't exactly what I'm looking for. I would like to maintain the 30mm distance between the two cylinders, so the higher cylinder is sort of levitating(while being vertically aligned) over the grounded cylinder. Any way to do this?

To be more specific, I'm designing a stewart platform so would like the top to be directly over the base. I have attached a picture for reference.

As you can see, the top is not vertically aligned with the base, even though it is parellel to the base.

[jakefowler]

Hi @Anonymous,

Sorry that wasn't what you were after! If you want to constrain the degrees of freedom of the platform with respect to the base, you'll most likely need to do this using Joints.

If the condition you want to apply is that the platform stays 30mm above the base, you could probably achieve this with a Planar joint. Create the joint between the two faces you want to have 30mm seperation between, which will first mate them together, and then apply a vertical offset of 30mm using the manipulator/dialog:

Is that more like what you were trying to achieve?

Thanks,

Jake