Sweep and mitre corners

[machtek]

Solid guru's, I need on a continuing basis to sweep a chain into a solid that follows a path that has a 90deg turn or more.

 

Question is: can this be done and how. I would like it to mitre each corner so I don't have to create individual solids then cut the ends at 45deg and then join them.

 

 

TIA

Dennis

[Kannon]

have your shape you want at both ends and extrude them thru one another to create your corner...then draw a line were you want the miter to be... that is going to be your trim plane. In version 9 its

SOLIDS-NEXT MENU-TRIM then pick the solid...then your going to trim it to PLANE... and when you choose plane it gives you the option to use LINE..pick the line you want for the miter...and it will trim your solid to that line.

 

hth,

[Guest]

Dennis,

 

When modeling, mind you I work parametrically in Solidworks, I was taught to start with your basic shape and always add your fillets and chamfers to your model as separate features as they are then easier to control and update as the design changes. So my suggestion would be to NOT add all of that into your initial extrude/sweep.

[Kannon]

Dennis..

you got mail..

[machtek]

Thanks Kannon and John.

 

In solidworks I also do the same, start with a square or rectangle and make the changes out of the initial sketch. I havn't done the same in mastercam and maybe I should, just seems like it will be a little more complicated than that. Unfortunately the shape I am working with (the across) is a spline and would be impossible to do that with.

 

I had tried to do as Kannon suggested and got stuck on choosing the plane to trim it to. I will have to take another swing at that.

 

Thanks for the help

Dennis

 

Kannon, I love the kid with the cobb, simple pleasures huh? I asume that's your pistol (mini kannon)

[Kannon]

Dennis

In my options..right after I go thru the menu

SOLID-TRIM-PLANE the next option says LINE I choose that and then pick the line I drew across the corner for the miter. Then when I choose DONE it trims your solid to the line.

 

really works slick.

[machtek]

Ok I got the trim function to work. I was getting confused, after you choose the line to mitre them at it then prompts you for a plane and it didn't make sense. I just green arrowed past it and it worked.

 

Thanks for the help, I still have a hard time accepting that a supposed "inferior" cam package (Artcam) can do this and mastercam can't. I can just open up Artcam and create the solids the fast way then export them. This will still beat the time it takes to "make" mastercam do what is needed.