To Create a Belt and Pulley System
1. With a mechanism assembly open, click Belts. The Belt tab opens.
2. The References tab is open by default. Select the surfaces, edges, or connections on which to wrap the belt. To select two references, press and hold CTRL. A belt, indicating the belt path, appears in the graphics window. You can change the path as follows:
Click to toggle the side the belt wraps around the pulley.
Click the up or down arrows to change the order of the pulley in the belt path.
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Click the appropriate drag handles to flip the wrap side or to change the wrap order.
3. After you set the path, you can select a surface for the Belt Plane.
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It is not usually necessary to define the belt plane, as this is an automatic feature. However, if the selected surface is not the one that you are looking for, you can manually select another surface.
4. Click Options to define or edit the pulley connection. By default, if there is no conflict, the pulley pin or cylinder connection is defined as the Pulley Body, while the second rigid body is defined as the Carrier Body.
To reverse pulley body and carrier body roles, click . Bear in mind that this may result in a rigid body conflict across pulleys.
Enter a value for the Number of wraps around the pulley. The default value is 1.
Click Next Connection to browse and select a set of pin or cylinder connections for the pulley. This option is available only when the pulley reference is geometrical (surface, edge or curve) and when the rigid body containing this reference has more than one valid pulley connection.
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Click the appropriate drag handle to set the number of wraps around the pulley.
5. Click User Defined to activate the unstretched belt length collector. Enter a value or select a value from the list of most recently used values. Once you activate the unstretched belt length, the value becomes a constraint which must be satisfied during the connection process.
6. In the Stiffness (E*A) line, select a stiffness units type from the list. The a value in the box depends on the type of stiffness units you pick from the list.
7. Click to preview the new system, and then click to close.
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