I have been trying to model a conveyor belt with a quickrelease similar to the conveyor shown in this video:
I need to animate the motion so I can show that rotating the tip of the conveyor releases the tension of the belt and enables easy removal. I have been trying to use the Belt/Chain feature which works perfectly when modelling the tense belt. But when I start rotating the tip of the conveyor and the belt is rebuilt it is still tight - which means the belt changes length instead of starting to slack. Is there any way to model this so I will be able to show it via animation in Motion Study?
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I have no idea if either of these will work but a couple things I would try.
1) If you can accept facets, make the belt out of a bunch of plates and link them. Then when you do your motion study just make sure the belt pieces can't penetrate the main conveyor portion. Apply gravity, run the study, Voila!
2) Create the belt with a path and define it with path length. Make the rest out of lines, spline etc and mate them accordingly. So an arc will always have to be concentric with the ends. The spline would have to remain tangent to the top of the table and the "Break point". May not look like a perfect belt when flat but might be close enough.