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FlexShapes - Belts


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I've made some different belts using the Cam Belt part from the FlexShapes catalog as a base.

 

It's really cool how easy you can work with the shape of the belt by selecting the (negative) shape in the history tree of the part and then move or edit the size!

 

Belts.png

 

To move a shaft and at the same time update the belt shape in real time, first select the negative shape of the belt in the scene browser part tree, then hold down [CTRL] and [sHIFT] keys and select the shaft in the 3D scene (not in the tree).

Then activate the Triball to move them both.

 

Belt_Move.png

 

To change the diameter of the Shaft and the belt at the same time, first select the negative shape of the belt in hte scene browser part tree, then hold down the [ALT] and [sHIFT] keys and select the shaft in the 3D Scene (not in the tree).

Then use any of the diameter handles.

 

Belt_Edit.png

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I've made some different belts using the Cam Belt part from the FlexShapes catalog as a base.

 

It's really cool how easy you can work with the shape of the belt by selecting the (negative) shape in the history tree of the part and then move or edit the size!

 

To move a shaft and at the same time update the belt shape in real time........

 

To change the diameter of the Shaft and the belt at the same time..........

 

 

Nice one !

 

A few of caveats.

1) Change diameter - two size boxes appear.

Change via the H Cylinder sizebox maintains the relationships, change via the Shaft sizebox does not, at least it this is what happens for me.

 

Do a change via the Shaft sizebox breaks the relationship, but then a successive change via the H Cylinder sizebox will bring it back correctly into line. As they are close together in the example model picking the wrong one is easy.

 

2) Undo [CTRL Z] -

for diameter changes with H Cylinder sizebox does NOT undo correctly.

for positional moves does undo correctly.

 

So a couple of be wary notes, but a very nice example for future use.

Edited by Mike Hatch
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Thanks!

There are many different kinds of cool types of parts you can do cool.gif

 

Yes, I can repeat both those issues.

 

1) Editing the Sizebox of another shape will (temporarily) brake the "sync" of the two. As soon as you edit only the Sizebox of the Belt H Shape it updates and works fine.

 

2) Undo doesn't work on dimension change, but works fine on position change.

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Let's say I have a serpentine belt and there are 12 different pulleys involved...How do you add the "negative" shapes? The default catalog item only has 2.

 

Thanks.

45755[/snapback]

 

Steve,

You would have to recreate this from scratch. It involves, project constraints, parameters and constraints. Its not really hard, just a little time since you would need to do this at least 12x in your case.

Tom

 

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Guest SMD_Footprint

Cambelts with many wheels is something i have been in need of many times but never figured out how to make, i guess there is something i haven't understood.

Thanks for the effort :)

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Hi All,

Here is a quick video to show how to build the belt. I used structured part for this example to give you an alternative way to build this. You can build in either mode and we have the FlexShapes catalog for examples of the Innovative approach. Hopefully you find this useful. I also attached the file that was created and saved in version 2020.

Best Regards,

Cary

Belt.ics

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