filleting a spline to an arc

[30rock*2]

Hello,

 

I am trying to fillet a spline to two adjacent arcs, and where the two fillets meet I am experiencing a small area where the aforementioned do not "mesh" together. It did not affect my tool path, but the relatively small ".005ish" area where they meet is annoying.

 

Any suggestions would be wonderful.

 

Thanks.

[Lindsay W @ In-House Solutions]

Can you attach an image? or the MCX file? It sounds like you would most likely need to create a line between the two and trim the arcs accordingly.

[Colin Gilchrist]

Create > Spline > Blended Spline

 

The Blended Spline function lets you set a 'magnitude' at either end of the spline, which changes the tangency condition at the endpoint.

[Dan_AKA_ROY]

What Colin said..

 

Filleting a spline with arcs can be tricky often times. A spline is an interpolated curve, meaning its radius is variable (constantly changes). Arcs are segments of a circle and have a constant radius.

 

I've created "fillets" for comparative purposes before creating a blended spline. You can eyeball it until you get an appr. match when adjusting the magnitude of the blended spline.

 

Some CAD systems don't call them "splines". Many do, such as Mastercam. Rhino, for instance, just calls them curves (it calls lines, arcs, splines...curves). What they are is interpolated curves (as I mentioned, curves with variable radii...in other words, splines are free form curves). Whatever you prefer to call them, they are great for designing (obvious) but you need to find tips and tricks at times when dealing with them.

 

Filleting in general works great on some geometry and can cause headaches on other geometry. Often, you'll need variable radii as a constant radius may not work around the whole area. You may need to do blending, create fillet (no trim) and create additional curves then trim back, etc. It really is a skill dealing with filleting situations. The experienced and skilled CAD designers know an assortment of techniques to get the results they need. Do a google search on filleting and you'll find some good sources on how to handle those tricky filleting problems that often arise.

[Dan_AKA_ROY]

Here's a link I found on filleting. Take a look.. It's using Rhino, but some useful tips here which you can incorporate in Mastercam..

 

This deals with filleting surfaces, which wasn't your question. Nonetheless, I thought this might be of some interest..

[Rotary Ninja]

Being anal retentive is a pain in the anal retentive area sometimes huh?

 

I always just draw a short line or radius connecting the two. If it gives me trouble based on the endpoints' locations I just use EDIT>>>MODIFY SPLINE and move the spline around slightly to get it where it needs to be.

[Micromoldmaker]

When dealing with splines what I often do is this: break spline into 2 pieces; create arc 3 points by picking first the endpoint of first line or radius, then endpoint of one of the now broken in two splines (puts me near the midpoint of the whole spline)and then the end point of the other line or radius I want to fillet into. I hope this is what you were looking for, it's hard to tell sometimes without actually seeing the geometry.