Mechanism Assembly - Standard to Mechanism

[cthomas-2]

This is probably a popular topic but I can't seem to find the answer in the forums. I have an assembled system that is in the concept phase--during initial assembly I constrained all of the components without using mechanism assembly (pin, slot, cylinder, etc). Now I want to change some of the components earlier in the assembly to use mechanism constraints but those options seem to be not available (with right-click>edit definition) after initial assembly. So, is there a way to constrain a component with a PIN constraint after it has been assembled with INSERT?

Thanks in advance.

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[TomD.inPDX]

I just tried this and it seems you have to delete the original set. Then you can define a new set with the mechanism contraints.

Seems like you should be able to simply uncheck the original contraint, but NOoooo...

Remember to make set your rigid component for the mechanism Ground before any moving components.

You might have to re-sort the compoennts in the tree. You might think about this before deleting the contraints of the sub-components and loosing complete control of the assembly.

[jsarkar]

If you already added large number of components, it would not be easy to change it to mechanised model which will perform well. I suggest you suppress all the components first and then resume one by one with defining or rechanging the constraints to connections. In this way, you will not have any over definition connection problem. Hope it solves your problem.

[asingh-6]

I don't think this works anymore. I have been working on such mechanism for last few weeks, and face same problem. I know it used to happen in Wildfire, but I don't see this happening anymore. There may be some configuration option or something.

[vzak]

Gentlemen,

Not sure if yet relevant as this thread is quite old. Still ...

You should be able to convert to Mechanism any component that has degree of freedom different from Zero. If component is fully constrained (DOF = 0) it eventually can not be converted to MECH Connections. Basic check is when you redefine component you should see note "Not Fully Constrained".

Regards,

- Vlad