Animator problems -- am I being dense?

Question

I haven't really fooled around with Animator much, and I'm having problems getting it to do the most basic thing for the particular assembly I'm trying to animate. It's probably something basic I don't understand, and I hope someone will see that and clue me in.

I've got 8 spur gears within an internal-tooth gear ring. 7 of the spur gear instances are a component pattern, and I'm trying to drive them all by moving the seed component. I've got my Mates set up so that I can easily move the seed component, and the whole component pattern moves accordingly (as such, my Mates are NOT preventing movement), but when I create a path I can't get ANYTHING to move, not even the seed component. I'm following Brian Hill's article faithfully, as far as I can tell. Here's what I do:

1) Select the seed component (spur gear) in the Animation Manager, right click and choose Create Path. Leave the timing options as they default (begin at 0 seconds, duration 10 seconds).
2) Add Path Point for the initial position of the spur gear
3) Move the spur gear a little ways around the ring gear (the component pattern follows suit)
4) Add Path Point for the new position of the spur gear
5) Continue until I've moved it to the last position and hit the Done button
6) Right-click on the Path, and choose Traverse Path. I can see the hourglass tick, can see the "clock" in the bottom right hand tick off the seconds until it gets to 10 Nothing happens to any component positions.

So . . . what am I doing wrong? Using SW2003, SP5.0

TIA

Mark 'Sporky' Stapleton Charlotte, NC

Edward T Eaton · Accepted Answer

When you go back and edit the path, and check all of the positions, does theseed component actually remember how it was supposed to move?  We ran into abug where the path would erase its movement on circular rotations when thatseed component was mated to other things.  Upgrading to 2004 corrected mostof it, though I think we had to play some tricks (use a hidden component asthe seed, with some trick mates) in order to get everything to workproperly.

Sporkman · Answer

No, actually the seed component does NOT "remember" its proper position when I go back and edit the Path. I can increment from one position to the next and nothing happens at all. At this point, however, I'm not even trying to rotate the spur gear on its own axis. I'm only trying to create positions around the inside of the internal-tooth ring gear.

Curious Sporky

Edward T Eat>

None · Answer

The problem you are encountering is typical of some ofthe limitations I've experienced with Animator. I rememberhaving the same problem trying to get the U-Joint exampleto rotate. Matt Lombard hooked me up with a tip... makesure everyting is mated completely (which meant I had tomate the 'Knob' so it wouldn't spin as the handle turned).It worked in that case, but I really feel Animator shouldhave worked regardless. Another thing I had to do was toput a couple dozen path points to get it to be smooth.It's exactly those little annoyances that forced me to findalternative methods of animating. BTW 2004 has GearMates which might work better. I forgot if you had installedit yet.Equations are what I like to use now, especially for motionsuch as gears turning where you have lots of repetition.You get perfectly smooth motion for as long as you wish.Remember this... used a simple equation to make the ghosts hover smoothlyabout Scooby. That would have been almost impossible to dowith paths.If...

Sporkman · Answer

Equations . . . OK, I guess I need to educate myself regarding them anyway. Gee, so encouraging that you, the Animator Guru, have sort of abandoned Animator for animation. Another "kudo" for SolidWorks Corporation. :-(

'Sporky'

N>

Animator problems -- am I being dense?

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