Drive joints and motion studies

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Drive joints and motion studies.

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In this video, we'll use animate joint, animate model and create a motion study.

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In Fusion 360, we want to carry on with our air cylinder and mount.

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Now we want to talk about some of the other options we have for mechanical motion.

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First we're going to take a look at animating joints and animating models.

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We're going to take a look at the slider joint, we're going to right click and notice that we have several different options.

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We've already set up our joint limits but we can also drive the joint, animate the joint and animate the model.

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When we drive a joint, we're giving it a very specific position.

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In most cases, this very specific position will either be a numerical value or an angle.

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We say OK, then we can determine whether or not we want to revert or capture that position.

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This can be helpful for circular objects that have a revolute joint and you want to set them to a specific angle.

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If we right click on slider again and we animate the joint,

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notice that the air cylinder body is moving back and forth to the extents of our joint limit.

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When we use this option, we can hit Escape to stop the animation.

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Animate joint will take a look at only the single joint we have selected and it will not respect any other joints that are applied to the model.

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However, if we select animate model, it will also take into account any other joints.

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This is extremely helpful if we have complex linkage systems, things that have multiple revolute or slider joints that rely on each other.

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This way you can animate the various joints at the same time by using this simple option to go back and forth to the extent of the joint limits.

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Let's go ahead and hit Escape to end that.

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Next from the Assemble drop-down we're going to select an option to create a motion study.

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A motion study will allow us to select specific joints and we can determine their values based on those selections at different time stamps.

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For example, at 40 we might want this to go minus 5.5”.

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At 80, we might want to go back to zero.

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If we set this to loop and we play through, it will allow it to go to its extents back and forth.

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However, this can also include multiple joints.

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For example, at 40 we might want this to go up 15 degrees.

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And at 80, we might want it to go to negative 45 degrees.

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So as we play through the animation, we can get a good idea as to the limits of our specific joints and the mechanisms that they're driving.

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This can again be extremely helpful if you have circular components that you need to animate revolving through 360 degrees,

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and simply loop it to go back and forth through the animation as you analyze the mechanics of your design.

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Once we select OK, a motion study folder is created at the top of the browser,

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and we can go back to the motion study at any point in time to edit or even remove it.

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At this point, let's navigate back to a home position.

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Let's revert and let's make sure that we save the design before moving on.