Part Motion Within an Assembly - Atom 3D, and an Animation

[wphred]

I have an assembly of a tablesaw sled I am modelling (sled assembly a) and have a question about part motion within the assembly. In the picture, the gray part is the sled base. The colored pieces are part of what I call the t track assembly. The green and yellow parts are part of the stop block assembly, and the orange and blue parts are of the track assembly.

I have the stop block assembly constrained to the top and front surfaces of the orange part. This allows it to slide along the t track as you would expect, and it does this within the t track assembly model. However, when I add the t track assembly to the overall assembly, I can no longer move the stop block. I have the orange part constrained to three surfaces of the sled base, which fixes the orange part with respect to the sled base. Within the track assembly I have the blue t track constrained to three surfaces of the orange base.

It seems to me that the stop block should still be able to move within the overall sled assembly. I believe I may have a nesting issue or some other mistake that keeps this from happening.

My initial idea was to make a short animation that shows the stop block moving along the track. Is there a tool within Atom that would allow me to do this?

 

[NateLiquidGravity]

I don't know if this is available in Alibre Atom 3D but here is info on it.

Articles

help.alibre.com

 

[HaroldL]

As Nate pointed out you should be able to make the stop block assy flexible which would allow it to slide along the T-track.
However, looking at your assembly, is the track assembly (orange part) going to be fixed to the sled base or is it removable when you actually build it? If it is fixed to the base then I would put the model together as you would build it. That would mean the stop block should be added to the top level assembly in which case it should be free to move along the T-track.

I went through the same issues when I built my saw sled.

 

[wphred]

I don't know if this is available in Alibre Atom 3D but here is info on it.

Articles

help.alibre.com

Thank you, that worked perfectly.

 

[wphred]

As Nate pointed out you should be able to make the stop block assy flexible which would allow it to slide along the T-track.
However, looking at your assembly, is the track assembly (orange part) going to be fixed to the sled base or is it removable when you actually build it? If it is fixed to the base then I would put the model together as you would build it. That would mean the stop block should be added to the top level assembly in which case it should be free to move along the T-track.

I went through the same issues when I built my saw sled.

The t track will be fixed to the sled base. So you are saying I could have added the stop block after assembling the t track to the sled base? Would that have made a flexible stop block unnecessary? That would cut out another step and make things simpler, always a good thing. There are additional attachments to the sled (miter blocks, small part drop-off tray , etc.), so adding those assemblies later would be beneficial. My friend already made the sled and all of its components and attachments. I thought it would be a nice introduction to Atom 3D to model it.

Are there in-house methods of making animations or is that something that is available in higher levels of the software? I know of work arounds I could use outside of Atom 3D.

Thank you again for your quick replies

 

[HaroldL]

The t track will be fixed to the sled base. So you are saying I could have added the stop block after assembling the t track to the sled base? Would that have made a flexible stop block unnecessary? That would cut out another step and make things simpler, always a good thing. There are additional attachments to the sled (miter blocks, small part drop-off tray , etc.), so adding those assemblies later would be beneficial. My friend already made the sled and all of its components and attachments. I thought it would be a nice introduction to Atom 3D to model it.

Anything that is permanently attached to the base sled as it is built should be modeled the same way so the sled level assembly contains all of its fixed components. The stop block assembly and any other attachments, miter blocks, drop off tray, etc, that will temporarily attached to the sled when in use should be added to the top level sled assembly in the CAD model.
The fastener (T-bolt, knob, and washer) for the stop block should be part of the stop block assembly or one level up from the assembly of its two component parts.
Just make the assembly mimic real life.

Are there in-house methods of making animations or is that something that is available in higher levels of the software? I know of work arounds I could use outside of Atom 3D.

Thank you again for your quick replies

The only animation I know of for Alibre is that within KeyShot, although I don't think that is available for Atom 3D. There are a couple programs listed in the Add-Ons section but I am not familiar with them.