Solids help

[romer]

I am having trouble drawing a simple slot as though it were cut with a ball endmill. If I extrude a rectangle (say .250 wide and 6.00 long X .250 deep) and then radius the inner contour, it has to be less than the radius of the slot or it won't let me do it. This leaves a small flat at the bottom of the slot. If I try to extrude - sweep along a drawn contour MC won't let me do it. I'm confused.

 

What is the easiest way to draw a radiused slot in solids.

 

Thanks for the help.

Romer

[Diablo God]

Change the view to the side, draw the shape of the ball emill, and extrude it through the part from the side...

 

Jim

[crazy^millman]

I have created a soild that is the toolpath and bollean remove from the orignal solid also to create this effect.

 

HTH

[richardtraver]

i put a file on the ftp called solid slot it uses a revolved cut to make the slot. check it out it's pretty simple

[Lee.]

+1250 to madbub. You can extrude any shape you like through a solid. You don't even have to extrude it perpendicular to the geometry chain either, but the chain has to be planar. Squash, then Trim to make sure everything is peachy, especially if you are using some edge curves to create your geometry.

 

My 2 cents.

[Glenn Stephens. from CCCS]

You basically have to create the "rectangular" part of the slot seperately from the "ends" with the spherical bottom. Find the tangency of the diameter (at both ends) and create a cross section. use sweep to take out the "middle" of the slot and revolve to create the ends.

[romer]

Richard, (and all others)

Thank you for the replies.

 

I got the file and it works fine now. I tried the revolve function previously as the tutorial shows, but must have had something wrong because it wouldn't do what I wanted.

 

I should also have been more specific by saying I want to plunge the endmill in and out of the part at the ends of the line as opposed to slotting all the way across it. (Your file is just what I was trying to accomplish, Richard.)

 

My next question is how would I do the same thing only this time, instead of a straight slot, it is an "S" shape.

 

I assume sweeping along the path would be the way to do it, but I can't even figure out how to draw the darn thing.

 

If I create an "S" shape in the top plane, translate in Z -.125, then how does one create a fillet to join the lower line ends with the upper line ends as viewed in the front or side plane since there seems to be no defineable plane to work with. I'm confused.

 

Thanks again for the help so far.

Romer

[sike]

I to would like to know how to do that i have tried simialra thing but not sucsessfully.

[Diablo God]

Well if you draw your s shape from the top plane. Pick one of the end points of the s. Offset that line in each direction, .125. Draw a line to each end point of the offseted lines you just made Now translate it down .25 while joining. Now if you look at it in dynamic view. You will see a box in going down. Click cpane and click 3d. And creat,arc,tangent, 3 entitities. Click the bottom line, and the 2 lines going upwards. This should create your arc on the bottom. Now trim them up into the shape you need. And hopefully you have the item you want to sweep.

 

Solids,sweep It will say chain items you want to be swept. Click the items you just made, it should be a closed chain to do this. hit done till it says along path. And click your s path starting where you just made the geo for the swept.

 

That should grab your shape you made, and pull it along the length of the s, cutting everything in its path, or making if you said to create.

 

 

Anyhow hope that helps. Hard to explain things over the internet sometimes...

 

Jim

[crazy^millman]

well I would create a solid/next menu/primitive/sphere at each end of the s. I would create a c/plane at the end of the s then draw the circle to the size of the sphere. I would then do a solid/swepp of the circle along the s using cut and there you go.

 

HTH

[P_Scott]

romer,

 

Ron's last entry is probably easier than Madbub's but they will accomplish the same thing. You need to design geometry at one end of your "S" shape that will produce the radius, then you can Solids-Sweep that shape along the "S". Ron's primitive Sphere can also help to generate the required geo. by using the Create-Curve-Slice function, and creating a cross-section curve of the sphere. This is the same as creating a circle but you wouldn't necessarily need to generate a new Cplane to draw the slice curve. I hope this makes sense. Beyond this, I would suggest you attend a Mcam Solids training class from your reseller. HTH

[crazy^millman]

I put a file up on the FTP in the MC9 folder called Crazy S.zip take a look. If you go to solid/solid manager you can suppress the different soilds to see how I did it or delete the boolean and see how they look at the start.

 

HTH

[richardtraver]

draw the s shape and sweep and sweep a cut with sharp corners. then at the ends finish the the rad. with a revolved cut

[richardtraver]

I PUT A FILE ON THE FTP CALLED SCUT.MC9 IT'S PRETTY EASY TO FOLLOW