driveshaft universal joints & correct mechanism order for nesting

[aruzgys]

Hi

Trying to establish the correct way to layer mechanisms within assemblies for a driveshaft/uni joint setup.

I have found a few ways that make it work, however they all seem a little cumbersome.

What i currently have is 3 main assemblies

 1. Input containing a yoke with a pin constraint

2. Output containing a yoke with a pin constraint

3. Driveshaft with sub assemblies 

 - universal joint with pin constraints

 - driveshaft with a slider constraint

When assembling these im assumining that i should be using a rigid constraint to put the driveshaft assembly with 2 sets to attach to the Input/Output shafts, however this does not want to work for me.

Should i be assembling the driveshaft into the main assembly as a mechanism also? or nesting this differently?

Also within the Uni joint, Should the cross be the default with the caps all allowed to rotate? or one set of caps fixed and the cross & alternate caps be allowed to rotate?

Its seeming like there needs to be a very specific set or they all fall over, any tutorials i can find doing similar setups want me to have the input & output yokes inside the same assembly at fixed points.

[kdirth]

Sounds like you may be assembling correctly.  There are a lot of selections/settings/dimensions/etc. to consider.  Can you provide your assembly.

[aruzgys]

I will try to package it up but theres a large chunk of IP that drives the input/output, i may need to create a dummy assembly with those pieces.

The few ways i have been able to get it to work are to assemble the driveshaft into the main assembly as .ither a pair of pin constraints, or with a general constraint. That doesnt make sense to me as i would assume the uni itself would be fixed to the yoke as rigid.

[pausob]

There are lots of ways to do this, but often it isn't clear what's allowed and what will ground the body and freeze the mechanism.

My general rule is to keep the connection references restricted to only the part models directly involved in the connection.