Can't get Solid Body Contact to work correctly

[DanPihlaja]

OK, here is my situation:

Caveat: (I am running SW 2022 SP4. Solidworks Professional. We do not have Premium, so I can only use Basic Motion)

I am trying to run a Basic Motion study to show a ball bearing traveling through a series of passages inside a part.

Click the attached GIF file.

The issue, as you can see, is that the ball, once it passes through into the interior passage, just goes straight through the rest of the part.

My expectation is that the ball will bounce off the back of the hole, then fall down toward us in the last view of the GIF file.

I know that SOME of the contact is working, because I changed the direction of gravity slightly so that it "bounces" off the sides of the hole it is falling through.

Things I have tried already:

1) I read that increasing FPS can help with this. Well, I tried a bunch of different numbers: 60, 100, 500, 1000, 5000, and 10,000. All with the exact same result.

image.png (8.53 KiB) Viewed 422 times

2) I read that decreasing gravity can help. So I changed it from the default to 10in/sec^2, then tried 1in/sec^2. Both with the same result. (then brought it back up to 10 for the video above because 1 was too slow)

image.png (15.58 KiB) Viewed 422 times

3) I read that using the standard materials instead of custom material for the components can help, so I changed the materials to Alloy Steel on both components

4) I read that increasing accuracy can help, so I maxed out both Geometry Accuracy and 3D contact resolution with no change in result. Then thought that maybe I went too far and brought it back a tic, with no change.

5) A full reboot. With no change.

6) I tried to contact GoEngineer about this, but today is Saturday, and their help is not available on weekends.

I am not sure what to do. We have a customer presentation on Tuesday (2/18) and I am trying to show this ball falling through the passages and it isn't working.



Any ideas?

Thank you in advance!!

[JSculley]

Rather than using Basic Motion, can you use a path mate with a Mate Controller to create the animation?

[DanPihlaja]

Rather than using Basic Motion, can you use a path mate with a Mate Controller to create the animation?

Thank you for the reply.

I can do that. However, I am trying to do a tolerance stack to see when the ball won't pass through the intersection of the holes.

I actually figured it out. I removed some geometry and made the fixed part a little simpler and now it is running correctly.