Gears

Use the Gears tool to create a gear entity to relate the motion of two joints.

Create Gears

  1. From the Browser, select the system to which the gear is to be added.
  2. From the Model ribbon, click the Gears icon.
    A guide bar for entity creation appears.
  3. Select the first joint to be constrained by the coupler (Joint 1).
    • Select a joint in the modeling window.

      OR

    • On the guide bar, click the Advanced Selector and make your selection in the Model Tree.
  4. Select the second joint reference (Joint 2).
    • Select a joint in the modeling window.

      OR

    • On the guide bar, click the Advanced Selector and make your selection in the Model Tree.
  5. Select an origin reference.
    • Select a point in the modeling window.

      OR

    • On the guide bar, click the Advanced Selector and make your selection in the Model Tree.
  6. Optional: Click to reset the entity selections and select new entities.
  7. Once the reference selections are made, create the gear using one of the following methods:
    • Click on the guide bar. Next, use the microdialog to swap the currently selected joints (if desired) and edit/orient the gear.

      OR

    • Click the button that appears at the mouse location in the modeling window. Next, use the microdialog to swap the currently selected joints (if desired) and edit/orient the gear.

      OR

    • Click to create the entity and exit the selections for this gear.
    Once the gear has been added to the model, the corresponding gear will automatically be displayed in the browser area.
    Note: By default, variables names of entities in MotionView follow a certain convention. For example, all gear entities have a variable name starting with 'gear_'. This is the recommended convention to follow when building models in MotionView since it has many advantages in model editing and model manipulation.
Tip: A new gear can be created from the Project Browser by right-clicking on the Model label (or any system/analysis of your choice) and selecting Add > Constraint > Gear or by right-clicking Gear and selecting Add Gear.

Edit Gears

  1. If the Gears panel is not currently displayed, select the desired gear by clicking on it in the Project Browser or in the modeling window.
    The Gears panel is automatically displayed.
  2. Click the Joint 1 collector and the select the first joint to be constrained by the coupler from the modeling window, or double-click the collector to open the Model Tree (from which the desired entity can be selected).
  3. In the same manner, click the Joint 2 collector and select the second joint to be constrained by the coupler.
  4. Click the Point collector (under Origin) and select the location at which the constraint will be placed.
  5. Click the Point collector (under Alignment) and select a point to define the direction of the gear, or, using the drop-down menu to the left of the collector, select Vector and choose a vector to direct the gear.