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Unread 02-04-2008, 18:26
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Re: Help with Roller chains

As far as I know, there is no system to make a chain automatically (like one you'd see on a bike or something), all I think Inventor can make is a semitransparent loop.

The chain I made is not very adaptive, so make sure you've got the dimensions right for the chain before you make it, heheh.

To make my chain, well, it took a while... lol. Basically, I made the sprockets i needed with the design accelerator, copied the sketches of the outline of the gears, and pasted all the sketches of the gear outlines in one file. I then made one figure 8 thing with two circles in the middle of each end (the link and the two pins bascially). The key to this part is to make the two pins the little dots at the center of the arcs of two adjacent teeth on the sprocket. Then make the figure 8 shape between those two pins. However, don't extrude anything till you are totally done. Well now that you have the two pins and the one link done, simple circular pattern this around the center of your sprocket sketch, you'll have to adjust the angle of the iterations so that the chains wrap around the sprocket as far as you want them to. Then simply copy one of the links and angle if from the sprocket to the other sprocket and rectangular pattern them in the line. This is basic concept I used.

I know thats confusing, but it should be pretty simple if you get the concept.