SOLIDWORKS Animations Using Distance and Angle Mates

SOLIDWORKS animations can be useful for showing movement in your assemblies. Sometimes, you’ll want more precise movement than you’d otherwise find by dragging your parts. As a quick refresher, let’s go over the basic steps to set up an animation.

Creating an Animation in SOLIDWORKS

• Click on the Motion Study tab at the bottom of the screen.
• Drag the time bar to a set time
• Make a change

When you make a change, a new keyframe will be created next to that item at the current time, indicated by the time bar. Using this method can produce some good animations. There are times, however, when a little more control would be nice.

• Suggested Video >> SOLIDWORKS Tips and Tricks — Basic Animations

Using Mates to Control an Animation

In this example, I'm animating the process of a tube bending machine. In this case, there are a number of moving parts. First, you have the clamp die come up and clamp the tube to the bend die. The pressure die then comes up to the bend die. As the bend die rotates around with the swing arm, the pressure die moves along to keep constant pressure at the tangent point.

Mates allow for precise movement and control and can help synchronize the movement. I will edit the mate values at different times to control the movement. I created the dies to have a 1/8” gap between them when closed and used a distance mate to control the spacing.

At the one-second mark, I'll right-click ‘Distance2', and choose Edit Dimension. This allows me to specify a dimension for this mate at the current time bar position.

Here, you can see that I have Distance1 and Distance2 changing from 0 to 1 second and again from 5 to 6 seconds. I also have Angle1 and Distance3 that change from 1 second to 5 seconds.

This has the clamp and pressure die close in. Then, the swing arm rotates while the pressure die travels along the point of contact, and then the clamp/pressure dies open again.

0 seconds, all dies open, part unbent:

1 second, dies closed, part unbent:

3 seconds, dies closed, part in process of being bent:

5 seconds, part bent, dies closed:

6 seconds, part bent, dies open:

I hope you found this SOLIDWORKS animations article helpful. Check out more tips and tricks below. Additionally, join the GoEngineer Community to participate in the conversation, create forum posts, and answer questions from other SOLIDWORKS users. 

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