Creating Rack Joints

You can create a rack joint to combine the rotational motion of a revolute joint and the translational motion of a prismatic joint.

This task shows you how to:

See Also
About Joints

Define the Properties

  1. From the Mechanism section of the action bar, click Joint .
  2. In the dialog box, select Rack from the list of joint types.
  3. Select the two joints between which to create the joint.
    1. Click the Pinion joint field and select a revolute joint in the work area.
    2. Click the Rack joint field and select a prismatic joint in the work area.
    The name of the two joints appear in the corresponding fields.
  4. To create a new joint:
    1. Click Create new joint .

      Tip: You can also click and select Create new joint.

    2. In the dialog box, define a new joint. For more information, see Creating Joints.
    3. Click OK.
    The new joint appears in the tree and in the field.
  5. Optional: To modify your selection, do one of the following:
    • Click and select Clear selection.
    • Select another element in the work area or in the tree.
  6. In Gear ratio w_Pi/v_Ra, specify a radian value for the revolution of the pinion relative to the rack it moves on.
  7. Enter a value for the angle offset of the pinion.
  8. Enter a value for the position offset of the rack.
  9. Click .
    In the tree, the joint appears under the Joints node.

Edit the Joint

  1. To edit a joint, in the tree, do one of the following:
    • Double-click a joint.
    • Click a joint and select Edit Feature on the context toolbar.
  2. In the dialog box, edit the joint parameters.
  3. Click .