Basic Joint

If you want to create a joint that restricts the range of motion of rigid bodies during simulations, use the Basic Joint command. You can select from the following joint types, and apply actuators to them to create realistic physics during simulations:

• Fixed Joint
• Hinge Joint
• Sliding Joint
• Cylindrical Joint
• Ball Joint
• Point on Curve Joint
• Curve on Curve Joint
• Screw Joint
• Planar Joint
• Path Constraint Joint

Setting physics calculation requirements

You can create cylindrical, fixed, hinge, point on curve, screw, and sliding joints using different motion calculation requirements to stabilize simulation performance.

For each joint, you can set Motion Type to:

• Dynamics — Performs precise joint calculations during simulations using the physics solver.
• Kinematics — Performs simple kinematics calculations, without using the physics solver, for improved simulation performance.

For ball, cylindrical, fixed, hinge, planar, and sliding joints, you can set Motion Type to:

• Articulation — Optimizes kinematic calculations to achieve more accurate and quicker results for use cases that require precise values, such as robotic joints with tight tolerances.

Overriding runtime parameters for physics object instances

If you use multiple instances of a cylindrical, hinge, or sliding joint in an assembly, in the Physics Navigator, you can:

• Right-click an instance and choose:
  • Override to set or edit an overriding runtime parameter for it that overrides the parent component parameter.
  • Delete Override to remove any overriding runtime parameter set for it, and use the parent component parameter.
  • Add to Inspector to add its runtime parameters to the Runtime Inspector to view and edit during simulation.
• Double-click an instance to access its parent component parameters.

Where do I find it

• Application: Mechatronics Concept Designer
• Command: Basic Joint