×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

chain assembly

chain assembly

chain assembly

(OP)
Hello mates,
I have a question how to design chain generaly and fit to main assembly. I mean standart roller or energy chain. I have issues every time I try to make a chain assembly. Is also a chance to animate the chain movement?
Thank you for reply,
Pete Sevy,
Konteza s.r.o.
Czech rep

RE: chain assembly

Making a chain in SolidWorks is not the road to happiness.  You can create a functioning belt in an assembly with the Belt/Chain feature, but it doesn't sound like that's what you need.

Dan

www.eltronresearch.com
Dan's Blog

RE: chain assembly

I am with Eltron that this is not very much fun, however I regularly deal with roller chain in SolidWorks. I just create the 3 parts that comprise a chain (pin, bushing, plate) and assemble using standard mates and linear patterns. I've not figured out a way to get it to move realistically beyond what Eltron mentioned. In any event, this is only a approximation of reality as the state of the chain and sprockets depends on the load in the different sections of the chain.

RE: chain assembly

I recently created a model that worked well for me.

I was using an IGUS energy chain, so I was able to download the end brackets and individual links for my chain in STEP format.

This post has some good info: https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/43093

About 2/3 down the page is a post by Jay Patterson with a zip file attached.

The critical step here is the Fit Spline in the sketch that defines the energy chain's path. It creates a single spline curve that the links can follow, rather than a piecewise curve. This seems to make the chain behave properly.

A warning- dragging this assembly around in a larger assembly made my computer VERY slow and crashed Solidworks when I wasn't being careful.

What's worse, in the end our hose sizes (and therefore our energy chain selection) changed, meaining that at some point I will have to go through the whole process again.  

RE: chain assembly

i agree with what others have posted. Very painful task. It baffles me how such a used mechanical process doesn't have some kind of whiz-bang wizard to make this actually possible at least for weight and length requirements.  SWCorp can add another forehead slap to their current long list of "WTFs".


PS.  Yes if you can't tell i've been working with (against?) 140 roller chain assemblies!  I'd kill for a belt AND chain feature that was also capable of broken chain segments not just full circuits.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources