Hello Sorry not to answer your question about SolidWorks Motion, I know the Meca3D app much better to describe what it offers on a mechanism only schematized. The study of the excavator arm that you are considering is quite classic in principle, including on the basis of a 2D diagram, as long as we limit ourselves to a geometric, kinematic and static approach. A dynamic study is more problematic, because it does not have the masses and inertia of the parts that make up the whole. It seems to me that the main problem is to define realistic input data. No difficulty if it is only a question of "moving the arm", the problem is more complex if it is a question of digging the ground... The attached document gives some illustrations of a Meca3D simulation.