Newbie- Custom Drive

[Deadwood]

I'm using Inventor Pro 2009 and want to make a drive system for two pulleys. Pulleys are only .2 and .375 dia. and something like 1.0 away so I can't use the v-belt generator...won't let me make something that small. Need to cheat here or something. I would like to use a o-ring for the belt but how do I draw all this up...plus to add more to it, the driver will be moving on and arc to the driven, so this may cause problems when dynamic simulating.

I'm just learning this program and I can see that alot of my designs may be beyond Inventor so if someone knows of a way or another CAE program that will allow custom (sometimes just crazy) designs, I would love to hear it.

I was thinking of using a cable in the harness generator.
Or virtual component.

[wages]

Hi deadwood,
I'd have to have a look at the v-belt generator to see what the limitations are, but keep in mind that most all of the design accelerators in Inventor are based off of standard libraries. Therefore if you are attempting to create a design that would require a belt that is smaller than the library contains this isn’t the correct tool.

However, the belt generator (and all of the design accelerators) is just a wizard to help automate the design of a standard component. Inventor is capable of designing just about anything, so don’t mistake the limits of standard component libraries for the limits of the application.

If you are just learning Inventor you’ll want to start with the fundamentals and not rely on the design accelerators to get to where you wanting to go. Put simply, design accelerators are purposed for taking the tedium out of common design tasks.

Attached is screen shot showing where to find the getting started PDF for Inventor 2009. It may help with the fundamentals. As for specifics of creating a pulley, create a sketch of a half section and use the Revolve tool to create the pulley. For the belt use the Sweep tool and sweep the belt profile along the sketched path. Look these tools up in the PDF I mentioned, and you'll be off and running.

I’ll attempt to post some helper info in a bit. Hope this helps.

[Deadwood]

If the generators use a library, could I design my own belt and pull it up in the generator. How would I do this.
I've been reading the help, but it's not always explained easily for a beginner.

I'm sure Inventor is a very flexible software, but it seems that to get the that flexibility you need to dig 6 feet down. After some practice I know I can get good at it but there does seem to be a steep learning curve.

Then again, what do I know.

[wages]

>> If the generators use a library, could I design my own belt and pull it up in the generator.

the short answer is yes, you could. However, but the steps to do so are not really newbie stuff.

See attached for some quick vids on how to create a simple pulley and belt.

>> I'm sure Inventor is a very flexible software, but it seems that to get the that flexibility you need to dig 6 feet down. After some practice I know I can get good at it but there does seem to be a steep learning curve.

It seems you may have jumped at the design accelerators, hoping that they'd provide some short cuts. As you've discovered these these "wizards" are pretty involved and assume a certain level of understanding of the fundamentals for use. I think you'll be better off concentrating on the fundamentals and modeling your part the old fashioned way (sketch and features).

The good news is that once you get the fundamentals, all parametric modelers are petty much the same, they just put the buttons in different places.

Hang in there you'll get it. save a copy of that PDF and have it handy, the table of contents are clickable, so you can look up a tool and it'll take you right to it.

[Deadwood]

Ah man, I knew it!

I thought you could just draw the belt then put it in the assembly and apply constraints and sim it.
I don't know how to do all this yet, but i'll figure it out.....but the belt needs to stretch alittle...maybe I can apply a material to the belt or just let it flex and observe this in stress analysis.

That belt vid just supported my theory....awesome.

Your help has been much appreciated.
I'll still have lots of questions in the future.

[Deadwood]

So I've used Wages info on created belts and pulleys.
I made two pulleys and a belt in their own seperate part files.
I've inserted the two pulley into my assembly and constrained them as so.

My problem is when I try to constrain the belt to the pulleys. I use the inside tangent constraint to one pulley....that works fine, but the other end pushes on the other pulley. I try to constrain the loose end to the remaining pulley but it only wants to do and outside tangent causing the other end to come off the first pulley. Seems like I need to adapt, suppress, or ground something...but what?

My other idea was to create a sketch plane in the mid of my pulleys in the assembly and draw and profile the belt right there...constraining the center of each rad end of the belt to the center of each pulley...keeping the belt in place to the pulleys...but that wouldn't constrain the belt to the pulleys unless I constrain after....hopefully not causing problems.

I don't know!

On the upside, I discovered that you can sketch in an assembly, constrain the components and manually move the components to see how they interact before going 3D. I thought that was neat

[wages]

Hi Deadwood,

Concerning constraining the parts, use a mate between the center of the pulley to the center of the belt, then use a mate (of flush) between the center planes of the pulley and the belt. I'd avoide the tangent contraint in this case. Personally I find that I almost never use tangents.

Also you can make the belt adaptive so that it adjusts to the pulley spacing automatically. See this tutorial for more info, in it you create an adaptive link, that is essentially the same as the belt.

Go to Help > Try It Tutorials > Advanced > Creating Adaptive Parts

[Deadwood]

Hey Wages,

Beautiful! You know your stuff.

I figured out that I can grab a components various planes under Origin file...which helped me grab the mid plane of the belt.

I have used that tutorial before but not completely sure how to incorporate it into this assembly.....I'll play around with it.

Thanks for your advice. You must work with software like this for a living?

Now is it too late to make the belt adaptive, one pulley moves on a hinge so the belt will need to contract and stretch slightly....or do I need to have that set in the part sketch?

[wages]

Hi Deadwood,
You can probably make it adaptive still (depends on how you created it, etc)

Try this Tutorial from Sean Dotson and see if it helps, Adaptivity depends on what you have present and how you set it up.

Adaptive 101 PDF

Download the Adaptive 101 Data Set (397kB ZIP)

If that doesn't help send me a PM or post your files here and I'll have a look.

Sounds like you're getting the hang of it.

[Deadwood]

Here it is...
The blue pulley is grounded...the grey pulley will pivot...
I drew the belt with a profile and sweeped...as seen in sketch file
It's all adaptive...constrained to a workplane at the middle of each pulley...you can see my degrees of freedom
I constrain with mate to the grey pulley....I can pivot the pulley but it is not attached to the blue pulley, soooo...I constrain it to the grounded blue pulley, but the minute I do that I'm not able to pivot the grey pulley

I think the Adapt 104....at the site you refered me to earlier...is the way to go but I don't know how to make it wrap around each pulley...and the placement of a workplane
I'll let you think before going into it too far here.

[Deadwood]

Ahhh damn, the pic to show the sketch of the belt screwed up...

[Deadwood]

Desperately, I tried a scheme like this. Attempting to replicate Adapt 104, with my spin ofcourse.
Not going to work cause I had to leave the sketch each time to project geometry on each pulley, preventing me from connecting the dots with 3d sketch.
Should note angle and size of pulley relation
I'm not afraid to try anything