Hinge Align Tool Help needed

[tcybula]

Hi

I am trying to construct a beer brewery on LDD and I have gotten to a point where I need to use Hinge Align Tool.

I can select the 2 items that need to be aligned, but the program gets them within literally a bees anatomy but cannot align them.

Can someone please help me.

I have attached the lxf file and the picture of what I am trying to achieve.

Cheers

Thomas

Brewery.lxf

[Brickdoctor]

I'll move this to the LDD forum so one of the experts there can take a look at this.

Okay, I took a look myself: I removed the tap pieces of the lower half so that it could be rotated. Then I used manual rotation to add some half-degree angles into the two halves, removing the long bar so that they could be aligned without colliding. Then I added the taps and the long bar back in:

Brewery.lxf

[yellost]

Here you go.

I've never really managed to get the hinge align tool to ever work. What I always end up doing is building a temporary rig with pegs and such that gives me a better control on what to rotate and then do it manually with the rotation tool.

(I don't know if that makes sense)

Edit : erf, Brickdoctor beat me to it ^^

Brewery_fixed.lxf

Edited August 7, 2013 by yellost

[tcybula]

Brickdoctor and yellost

Thank you for looking into this, truly appreciate what you both have done.

I will continue on with the design but I think for my own benefit I will try both the methods as you listed above for anything in the future which might pop up.

cheers

Tom

[Superkalle]

Beer brewery? Finaly some some good use of LDD

[Nachapon Lego]

Ok, this method is crazy. :-P

It is quite challenge to find perfect angle in this case. The delta X is OK 7 studs(=5.6 cm), but the delta Z is not standard.

So have to check LXFML text file to find them, then copy and paste in the calculator to find arc-Tan angle.

[6.94207000732421] [/] [5.6120052337646] [=] [inv] [tan] = 51.047746789225198201931614194664 degree, then paste it to LDD hinge tool.

Brewery LDD by tcybula by Nachapon S., on Flickr

Edited August 9, 2013 by bbqqq

[Lipko]

There is one very important trick when using that tool:

always make a separate, simple model with appropriate hinge points and use the tool on that, then move the neceswsary parts on the actual assembly.

The biggest problem is that the tool can't handle complex assemblies, otherwise I found it to be a useful and simple tool with this trick.

Edited August 12, 2013 by Lipko