Setting Up a Mechanism

Select a mechanism, and click Mechanism Manager .

The Mechanism Manager dialog box appears.

In this dialog box you can specify commands and activate or deactivate engineering connections for the mechanism. Engineering connections included in a mechanism are referred to as joints.

Tip: If you do not select a mechanism, the Mechanism Manager dialog box displays information for the current mechanism in the specification tree. You can specify the current mechanism by right-clicking on the mechanism and selecting Set as current from the menu that appears.

Indicate the Computation status used to calculate the degrees of freedom in the mechanism:
- Automatic: In automatic computation mode, the degrees of freedom are recalculated each time you add or remove connections and commands. This mode is suitable for small mechanisms.
- Manual: For large mechanisms, the calculation of degrees of freedom may be time consuming. To avoid performing this calculation each time you change a connection or command, select the manual computation mode. To check the current degrees of freedom at any time, click Update status.

Select the joints to include or exclude in the mechanism:

To include an engineering connection as a joint, highlight the engineering connections in the table and click Include.
To exclude a joint, highlight the joint in the table and click Exclude.
To include all available engineering connections as joints in the mechanism, click Include All.
To exclude all available engineering connections as joints from the mechanism, click Exclude All.

Warning: If you have compound joints in your mechanism that link two elementary joints, you can exclude the compound joint to unlink the elementary joints; however, you cannot exclude one of the elementary joints without also excluding the compound joint.

To highlight engineering connections, you can select them directly in the table, select them in the specification tree, or select a product or representation in the specification tree. If you select a product or representation, all engineering connections associated with that object are highlighted in the table.

Tips:

Parts that are not involved in the selected engineering connection become transparent in the 3D to let you visualize better the parts involved in the mechanism.
Right-clicking an engineering connection in the table displays a contextual menu that is helpful in navigating and configuring the mechanism:
- Select Include or Exclude to include or exclude the connection.
- Select Center Graph or Reframe On to focus the specification tree or viewport, respectively, on the selected connection.
- Select Preview to display a preview of the connection in a new window.
- Select Edit to open the Engineering Connection Definition dialog box and modify the connection.

To change a command in the mechanism:
1. Select an engineering connection that includes a controlled constraint.
2. Under Command Management, toggle Length or Angle. The label in the appropriate Command column changes to reflect the type of command that has been assigned to the joint.
Commands can be assigned only to the following engineering connection types:
- Cylindrical
- Prismatic
- Revolute
- Point curve
- Roll curve
- Slide curve
Compound connections can be used to link the behavior of Prismatic and Revolute joints. In this case the commands are still assigned to the Prismatic and Revolute connections. The following compound connections can be used:
- Gear
- Rack
- Cable
For more information, see Engineering Connections and Degrees of Freedom.
Repeat Steps 2 and 3 until the Mechanism Manager indicates that the mechanism is ready to simulate, the status icon turns to green:
To assemble mechanisms, click the Assembly tab.
Click OK to apply the mechanism settings.