Making Slider/Cylinder Assemblies more user-friendly

My boss wants me to make an assembly of a door that anyone, with no
knowledge of pro-e, can modify to extract information. What we have
is a large door with hydraulic rams, and he wants to know how much
travel is left in the ram when the door is at full open, and he wants
to be able to drag it, so the ram must be a sliding or cylinder
assembly. I plan on using the Parameters as the "user input"
section. The problem I've run into is the fact that for different
size doors we use different length and stroke of rams, going in
steps. I can make the ram components longer using relations and If
Else statements, but how can I make the travel longer? I limited the
ram travel using limits in the "Translation Axis" portion of the
assembly. Is there a way to get colliding parts to act like colliding
parts so they stop that way?

 

You can define colliding parts using cam connection and check "enable lift
off" box. If those parts are touching with parallel surfaces then you will
need to make a datum point on each surface to use as a front and back
reference. If the surfaces are curved (only 2D) then there is no need for
front and back reference.

 

I couldn't get the cam-follower to work, because both surfaces are
flat surfaces and WF3 will only do it if one of the cam surfaces is
curved. Also, I could not select the inner surface of the cylinder
tube. I can send a wf3 file for you to see if that is needed. I know
this is probably an easy problem to fix, I just can't see it right now.

 

My boss wants me to make an assembly of a door that anyone, with no
knowledge of pro-e, can modify to extract information. What we have
is a large door with hydraulic rams, and he wants to know how much
travel is left in the ram when the door is at full open, and he wants
to be able to drag it, so the ram must be a sliding or cylinder
assembly. I plan on using the Parameters as the "user input"
section. The problem I've run into is the fact that for different
size doors we use different length and stroke of rams, going in
steps. I can make the ram components longer using relations and If
Else statements, but how can I make the travel longer? I limited the
ram travel using limits in the "Translation Axis" portion of the
assembly. Is there a way to get colliding parts to act like colliding
parts so they stop that way?

WF3 has, supposedly, added collision detection, but I couldn't find it. I'm sure I've also set geometry limits on motion that amounted to hard stops. When you set up a servo motor, there are two radio buttons, one picked by default that lets you pick the translation axis and the other that lets you pick geometry. Have you tried setting limits, probably planar, maybe to planes built at the ends of the piston, for setting geometry limits? I can't recall exactly how its done, but I'm pretty sure I did it with a piston such as you're describing. Too bad nobody's here from Cat Hydraulics; I'm pretty sure their engineering department set up what you're describing to regenerate new cylinders with Pro/PROGRAM, just by inputting some numbers. Since then, Pro/e's added the ability to drag packaged components, even when not in Mechanism Design. Add geometry limits to that and it's probably all you'd need to do what you're trying.

David Janes

 

Ok...send it...