How to get tubes to mate in NX6 1

[aron579]

I am working on a SAE Mini Baja car and would appreciate any advice you can give. I have attached a file from NX6 of the front suspension support. Pardon my noob understanding of NX6 but I really need some help on how to trim the tubes so they mate with the joining tubes. I have drawn in the tube centerlines and used the tube feature to create the tubes but I can not figure out how to trim the tubes with a radius to mate with the face of the joining tube. Sorry if this question has been asked before but I could not find a proper solution. Thanks to all in advance!

 

[JohnRBaker]

I took your other model from yesterday and added all of the trims to the tubes using the 'Trim Body' function. However, I'm having problems uploading it from my home system so I'll have to wait until Monday or Tuesday to upload the file. I was able to pretty much finish all of the coping operations (using the Trim Body function) but had to make a couple of special trims and modifications which you'll see once I get the finished model to you.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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

 

[aron579]

Excellent sir, I appreciate it very much. I tried the trim body command but I was unable to get it to trim the proper tube. Is there a way you could show me the proper sequence of selecting the target and tool body so I can do this to the rest of the chassis? Again, thanks much!

 

[JohnRBaker]

You pick the Body to be trimmed first and then the FACE of the body it intersects. You should get a preview, but if it looks like it cut-off the wrong portion of the tube, there is an option to 'reverse' the direction of the trimming FACE. I was able to trim 80% of your tubes without any problems following the above workflow. I did have to adjust a could of tube lengths in order to get a valid result and in one area I had to use a different approach what I had to create some Datum Planes, cut the intersecting tubes with them and then one other area where I had to construct some additional bodies to use as tools for a couple of Boolean subtracts.

When you get the part file (eventually), you'll see what I mean.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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

 

[aron579]

Ok, I followed your instructions and still can not get the command to do what I want it to. I know that I am doing something wrong here but I can't figure it out. I attached a word doc with a few screen shots of what happens when I use the trim body operation. I assume the face of the intersecting body, being a tube, is the OD of the tube?

 

[stThree]

It looks like you are selecting the entire solid tube and not just the outer face for your trim face. Check your selection intent and see if it is on body faces or single face.

 

[aron579]

Thanks stThree! Yes I see what you are saying, but when I select the trim face (outer face of tube) it gets highlighted in red, and when I select it by clicking on it, the whole dang tube ends up getting selected so there are 4 tool faces in total, ID, OD and each end face. I can not de-select the ID and two end faces leaving me with the undesired operation. I'm fairly sure this is operator error on my part but I can't get the trim to select only the OD of the tube. I went to Edit>Selection>Top Priority-Face, and it still selects the whole tube. Sorry I don't really know what you meant by selection intent. Again, sorry for my very novice education of NX6.

 

[aron579]

Ah ha! I forgot about the right-click menu! It was set to body faces, I changed it to single face and it did what I expected! Thanks to all for your input! John, I would still like to see the trims you did to my original file when you get the time. Again thanks so much!

 

[JohnRBaker]

Sorry for the delay, but I'm finally back in my office where I have a good internet connection with no artifical restriction on uploading files (I've been living out of a hotel for the last 2+ weeks and their internet service had very limited uploading capacity).

Anyway, attached is your original model modified so that all of the tubes are properly trimmed. If you look at the various features added to your model to perform these trims I think you will get an idea of how the NX tools can be used to perform this sort of task as part of your general modeling process and workflow.

If you have any additional questions, please feel free to respond.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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