Cylindrical Sweep

[CPosner]

Goal:

Cyclindrical cam, barrel cam, drum cam, however you want to call it.

Trying to make a slot radially on a cylinder.

My approach:

Extrude the cylinder
Sketch slot path on a plane tangent to the cylinder
insert-curve-projection - project sketch onto cylinder surface
Sketch sweep profile on a plane that is normal to the curve.

Initial prototype is made on cnc lathe with live tooling to cut that radial cams/slot. or vmc with 4th axis.



Sweep cut with sketch and projected curve.

Errors/issues...

No matter what options I choose, the profile still twists along the path. The closest I have gotten is to "counter-twist" by twisting appx 10deg so it "looks" like it
doesn't twist.

Guide curves are tricky and have only given me more problems.

I get a lot of intersecting profiles until i tweak the profile.

Any tips/suggestions, approaches? Thanks!

 

[Timelord]

This have been discussed here before, run a search on barrel cams. I personally am of the opinion that you need the ability to sweep a solid to make a accurate barrel cam. I'm still on SW2005 and SW doesn't have this ability yet. I cannot speak for later releases.

Timelord

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Swept Solids was incorporated into SW08 Beta. I assume it made it through to SP0.

 

[pdybeck]

According to the Whats New document, it did.

 

[CPosner]

Side: Swept solid?

Is this different than "swept boss/base" and "cut-sweep"?

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Yes ... The Swept Solid function allows an actual solid shape (say a milling cutter) to be swept and cut from another solid. A Cut-Sweep only cuts a sketched profile which gives a slightly different result.

I believe it is still an approximation, but is much closer to reality.

files.solidworks.com/supportfiles/Whats_new/2008/English/whatsnew.pdf

 

[CPosner]

That's excellent. It's about time.


I think I've solved my sweep problem. Waiting for swept solid.

 

[TheTick]

I've been watching the swept solid issue. I'm curious to see how SW's version is.

Honesty may be the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.

http://www.EsoxRepublic.com

-SolidWorks API VB programming help

 

[SBaugh]

Its very slow and consumes tons of memory to run. You will not be able to use this feature for large complex shapes. The one in the what's new takes about 5-15 minutes to rebuild varies on PC's.

I personally am not going to recommend this feature because so many people are going to try and use it for something its not ready for and this is the initial release of the command. So its in it's infancy stages.

Good luck!

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

faq731-376

 

[Reaper2561]

We use the wrap feature with acceptable results on SW06.

Reaper