Inventor Assembly

[Scary99]

I am learning to assembly parts in Inventor 2016.  I am not sure when to use Joint or Constraint commands.  What is the difference between the two?  I have a good textbook but it is a bit confusing when explaining the commands and the examples given are few and very simple.

[mcgyvr · Accepted solution]

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2014...

Personally I have and will always use constraints only because that what I'm used to.. 

They are very..very similar but joints are marketed as being a "faster" way to assemble something as they not only create a constraint but also remove some degrees of freedom that may require multiple constraints to achieve.. Some joints are equivalent to placing multiple constraints.. 

[Binga]

I think there is no "When use one or other". WIth joints you can achieve the same configurations that you would achieve with constraints with less operations.
One thing that makes joints useful is that you can use them in the dinamic simulation directly.

[Daniel248]

In addition to what was said earlier:

If later on you want to animate a Constraint in Studio you can, but not (yet) a Joint.

[mdavis22569]

I'm like Mcgyver .. I use the normal constraints.  I've never really needed anything for a joint..

however here is something to read that might help.  (edited just saw it's the same link as his too ...sorry)

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2014...

For your basic modeling constraints you probably won't use joint constraints. Unless the tutorial you're working on ask for a joint constraint, I'd just use the basic constraints. 

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi, like the guys above, I also prefer constraints (it's what I was brought up on).

However, I was shown 1 use for a joint which I do use quite often - assembling an o-ring.

This takes 2 constraints (mate for axis & mate for axial position) but only 1 joint.

Please see images.

[JDMather]

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@Binga wrote:
...One thing that makes joints useful is that you can use them in the dinamic simulation directly.

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My experience has been exactly the opposite (but I haven't tried in 2017 since this didn't predictably work in earlier releases).

Can you post an example assembly?

How well do Assembly Joints work in Inventor Studio?

[Binga]

Sorry. I don't have one here. I used this aspect when I tried to simulate a with worth mechanism.
But I didn't use the cloud that time, my pc broke and I lost 70% of my designs. kkkkkk