Driving a simulation in a helix?

Any one with any ideas, ive tried mating helix surface to vertex... etc but
always if the mate is accepted then the model is fully or over defined, the
problem is animating a screw.

TIA,

JAG

 

Have you tried mating the surface to a sketch point? You
should be able to do what you want. It's been done before
in the NG. Someone posted a model once. Try here...

http://www.scottjbaugh.com/Design_Portfolio/Contributed SW models.htm

Mike Wilson

 

Also, If your trying to animate a screw turning into or out of a hole you
should be able to rotate it and move it simultaneously paying attention to
the thread pitch to accurately simulate the helical thread. (That's how
our lathe does it )

Zander

 

try making a helical surface that has the same pitch but square to the axis
the problem may be in part because a helical thread is angled to the axis
just a guess.....Just tried it with a simple example. I didn't animate it
but the mate worked and if I moved the helix radially it moved as expected.

Corey

 

....it seems that I had two problems, one is that the mate is solved for the
entire length of the surface/vertex and as I am using a 3 deg taper the mate
was failing at one extreme, the other more bazaar is that surface that I was
grabbing to drag the screw seems to play a big part in the performance, the
larger the surface the slower more erratic the performance, the best being a
vertex on the rotational axis, the model will behave when manually dragging
but will not respond in the animator or when attempting to drive the part
with distance mates. The model is very processor intensive and seems to bog
down easily. The faster the helix the better the performance but this may
just perception.

Best, JAG

 

Maybe you can use A radial simulation to get a base animation and modify the
schedule to what you want. When I was dragging the helical surface that I
had created it wouldn't move unless I mimicked the rotation that it needed
to do. Anyway good luck with the project.

Corey