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Inserting Nuts and Bolts

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mkraska edited this page Jul 6, 2026 · 8 revisions

Inserting Bolts.

Every bolt has a LCS_bolt It is attached to the lower surface of the head and its x direction points in axial direction towards the thread.

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The part origin is at the tip of the thread.

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So, the length of the bolt can be determined from the position of the LCS in the part coordinate system.

Inserting a bolt means to establish a fixed joint with reference 1 being a circular arc (perimeter of the hole) and reference 2 being the attachment edge of the LCS in the bolt. The angular offset is modified in order to have random orientations of the bolt heads.

The bolt is to be inserted such that the thread points toward the inside of the counterpart. For this we find the attached cylindrical face of the hole and compute its center of gravity. The scalar product between LCS_bolt.x and the vector from the perimeter center to the cog tells whether the joint should be flipped or not.

Grub Screws have their origin at the head (the slotted end), so that the LCS sits at the origin and it cannot be used to determine the threaded length of the screw.

Inserting Bolts and Grub Screws in Nonplanar Parts

In such cases there is no circular edge to select. In this cases, select the cylindrical hole for the screw. The insert point is selected such that the tip of the screw touches an adjacent inner face (e.g. the hole for the shaft in a hub).

Inserting Nuts

Nuts require two selections.

  1. A circular edge or a circular face identifying the end of the part onto that the nut is to be placed.
  2. A planar face to define the final placement of the nut.

The nut is placed at the intersection between the axis of the threaded part and the attachment surface.

The Nuts and Bolts Dialog

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Insert a bolt:

  • Select a circular edge
  • Press the appropriate button

Insert a nut:

  • Select a circular edge or a circular face
  • Press the nut button. The nut is positioned at the selected position.
  • Select the attachment face, where the nut has to go.
  • The nut position is adjusted automatically.

If Zufall is checked, then the nuts and bolts are inserted with a random rotation.

The three buttons in the lower row are

  • Flip: Flips the bolt or nut (in case the orientation was not correctly determined automatically)
  • Edit: Opens the settings dialog for the most recently inserted joint. Good for adjusting offsets
  • Undo: Remove the recently inserted part and joint. Note that inserting parts and joints in the dialog is not registered in the global history.

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