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. In the Definition section of the dialog box, select the two joints between which to create the joint.
    1. Click the Pinion joint box and select a revolute joint in the work area.
    2. Click the Rack joint box and select a prismatic joint in the work area.
    The name of the two joints appear in the corresponding boxes.
  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 box.
  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. 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.
    • Right-click a joint and select Definition from the object menu.
  2. In the dialog box, edit the joint parameters.
  3. Click OK.

    Note: To modify the general properties or graphical properties of the element, right-click the element in the tree and select Properties. For more information, see Displaying Properties.