How to export coordinates for hinged assembly?

tim_4

Hi all,

I've got an assembly of 2 doors, linked by a mechanism in Onshape. As one door opens, the other responds, with one door counterbalancing the other.

I'm trying to figure out the forces in the links between the doors (chains in reality), to help optimise the geometry and so maintain equilibrium across as wide a range of movement as possible.

I've already got a simplified Excel based trigonometric model, but as the system is somewhat non-linear, the simplifications are adding too much error.

I want Onshape to open one door by angular increments, and export the corresponding angle (or X-Y coordinates of a point) on the other door, in a format which Excel can import. I can then develop this to plot a graph of chain load vs angular opening.

Does anyone have suggestions of how to do this?

owen_sparks

I don't have the full answer but I suspect this will involve multiple named views in an assembly, an in context edit and a custom feature writing values to the debug panel that you'll have to cut n paste into excel.

Hopefully someone with some talent will be along soon

Owen S.

philip_thomas

This is exactly where dedicated analysis partners excel (no pun).
Check out the simulation partners - https://appstore.onshape.com/apps/Simulation
It looks like SimWise4D works with rigid body kinematics.
Good luck!

mahir

Check out maybe Swift Calcs.

tim_4

Looks like SimWise4D is closest to what I need - I'll give it a try.

Many thanks all for your comments.

konstantin_shiriazdanov

i have Tracer FS for tracing dependences of planar kinematic mechanisms, then it prints an array of format {drivingVar, drivenVar} to the console, and creates a graph of dependency. then you can copy-paste the data and analyze it in some math software by interpolating an array.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/2e01af46ce2cd5b90ee41156/w/82761270dd57ac2be5d84860/e/274c362e3eeb03f14eaa43c1
the advantage is that in some cases you can visually see if the kinematic dependency is (or is not) good enough to suit you purpouses and iterate faster, since it is fully integrated in the part studio build process