Gear Joint

You can create a gear joint to show rotational movement between two components, which is helpful for conceptualizing a gear and pulley system in an assembly.

See Also
Types of Mates
Functional Joints
Add Mate

Context: A gear joint requires two revolute joints, with each joint containing up to three mates. You may define some or all of the prerequisite mates before creating the Gear Joint or define the required mates from the Gear Joint command (recommended).

  1. Import your components or assembly in the 3D area.

    Start with at least three components in your assembly: two gear components and at least one other fixed component used to define the position for each gear.

  2. From the Assembly section of the action bar, click Gear Joint .
  3. In the Gear Joint dialog box, under Rotary Components, select two rotary components to use in the gear joint.
  4. Set the gear Ratio (R1:R2).

    You may enter any ratio in this format (R1:R2) where R1 is the first component selected and R2 is the second component selected. A 1:1 gear ratio assumes that the gear components rotate at the same rate. If the setting is 1:2, the second component rotates twice as fast as the first component.

  5. Optional: Click Reverse drive to swap the direction of the driven gear so that both gears rotate in the same direction.

    The gears rotate in opposite directions by default.

    Once you have selected both gears, the dialog refreshes to show which mates require defining for each component. Each of the two prerequisite joints are listed in the combo box above its corresponding mates. The ratio, joint, and component names are shown for each component along with the counter to track completed mates. Incomplete mates are displayed in a yellow counter and once you complete the mate requirements for each, the counter is displayed as blue.

    You can also select *Clear/Make new selections to clear the preselected mates and select new references.

  6. Complete the Concentric, Coincident, and Starting Angle requirements for each of the two selected components.

    Each mate type is described in the following table. Incomplete mates are denoted with a grey asterisk and required mates are denoted with an orange asterisk . If the prerequisite mates already exist before running this command, the precreated mates load in the appropriate fields.

    Note: When making selections for the individual mates, the appropriate component is isolated to help with the selections.

    OptionDescription
    Concentric. Select a cylindrical face from the gear and a cylindrical face from another assembly component to define the axis or rotation for the gear. You may also select an axis instead of a cylindrical face for one of the selections.

    Click Flip Orientation to reverse the orientation of the gear on its axis.
    Coincident. Select a plane or planar face from the gear and a plane or planar face from the other assembly component, to position the gear in space normal to the axis of rotation.

    Click Flip Orientation to reverse the orientation of the gear relative to the selected planes or faces.
    Starting Angle. Select a reference plane or planar face from the gear and a reference plane or planar face from the other assembly component, to position the gear's starting angle.

    In Axis, select an edge, line, or axis that is parallel to the axis of rotation. This selection is required to determine the positive and negative rotational directions. An angle might be provided automatically based on your selections.

    When an angle is displayed in the box, you can change the value to rotate the starting position of the gear.

  7. Click when finished identifying the mating parameters.

    All mates must be defined with the counters displaying to fully constrain the Gear Joint, but only the Starting Angle mates are required to complete the command.