Editing helix in NX 7.5

[zanouk]

Hello all!

After searching the forum, the NX help library and other, I still believe that there is no way of completely editing the helix created with the Helix feature in NX 7.5.
But....maybe I am wrong.
I am currently working on a part created by someone else. This person used a lot of helix features to obtain what was necessary, but on this revision I have to make some modifications and noticed that I have a surface imperfection which I believe is caused by the fact that the helices are most likely not properly aligned (not centered). It would be great if I could choose the central point again, but the dialog box does not offer this option. Is there any way of doing this? Making sure that the helices are aligned?
It would be too much trouble to replace everything with law curves (how I usually create helices), because the time is short.
You can see what I have in the "helix" picture and the surface imperfection in the picture "detail".
I greatly appreciate your help.

Have a good day!
D.

 

[cowski]

If you need to find the axis of an existing helix, mmauldin gives a good procedure here:
thread561-246415

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[JohnRBaker]

While you can edit any aspect of the size of an NX 7.5 or older helix, it is true that managing it's location and orientation are a bit trickier. This was one of the motivations for the work that we did in NX 8.5 when we completely replaced the helix feature creation function. Now, starting with NX 8.5, virtually all aspects of a helix feature can be parametrically and/or associatively controlled.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[zanouk]

cowski, thanks for the thread, that was very helpful in determining if they are not aligned and seeing how much the misalignment is. I now know that I have 4 helices which are misaligned on Y with values between 0,01 and 0,52mm. As I suspected. But this does not really help in solving this problem and aligning them....(or am I missing something?)

John, when you say that managing the location and orientation of a helix is a bit trickier, do you mean that there is a way of doing this? Would it be possible for you to explain it maybe?

Thank you both for your help! If nothing, I will leave this part as it is, with this small error, as I know that it won't be a problem for manufacturing.

 

[cowski]

Now that you know how much they are misaligned, why not use the move object command to get them into alignment??

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[JohnRBaker]

Ypu can't create associative relationships but you could use the 'Move Object' function to reposition it, whereas with NX 8.5 a helix is created relative to a CSYS, which you can either associatively link to other objects or you can simply edit the CSYS's location or orientation and helix will update.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[zanouk]

Thank you both!
I am so used to working only with associative features that I completely forgot that I can move the helix without 'exploding' the whole feature tree. It looks a lot better than originally.
I wish you both a great day!
D.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I know I'm going to have a "great day" as I'm on vacation this week. My wife and I drove to Texas to visit the granddaughters.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.