Place hole on external curved cylinder??

[fighterpilot]

I'd like to place a counterbored hole on the external surface of a cylinder. I'm trying to pick the curved surface as the placement surface and then select a datum plane for the angular location and then a planer surface for the locating dim. Seems UGNX5 will not let me pick the curved surface as a placement. Suggestions?


--
Fighter Pilot
Manufacturing Engineer

 

[ewh]

It wants a plane as the placement surface. Create one tangent to your cylinder and use that.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. - [small]Thomas Jefferson [/small]

 

[JohnRBaker]

Are you using at least NX 5.0.2.x? If you are, then there is no reason why you can't select ANY surface of any shape as the placement face for a hole, however it still requires a POINT to define it's placement location, but you can define an arbitrary vector for the direction (the default is normal to the face, but that can be changed using the options under 'Hole Direction').

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
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.

 

[fighterpilot]

Well, I've tried the suggestions and so far I don't like what I've come up with. I defined a point on the external surface and then used the point to locate a Screw Clearance Hole with a Counterbore form (5/16) and hole direction Normal to Face. The hole ended up going thru the other side of the ring because UG does not allow me to select a surface to stop the hole.

I then tried a General Hole, Normal to Face, Counterbore form and used my point to locate it. Entered in my values for the counterbore and selected a depth limit of Until Selected. I then selected the ID of the ring. Again, the hole blasted all the way thru the part. I went back and changed my depth limit to Value and entered in a depth of 1". This time the hole went in "visually" like I would like to see it. However, that is not my INTENT. My intent is to have the hole always go thru the ID, regardless of ID size. If I were to change the ID of my cylinder to the point where the wall is greater than 1" then my hole will not go thru w/o me going back and changing the depth.

Is my logic out of wack here by trying to apply some engineering intent or is UG not going to easily let me do what I would like to do? I'm finding this system very frustrating compared to V5 or Pro/Engineer. I guess I'm just not grasping the underlying methodology of how UG functions.

Patience appreciated.

Thanks....

--
Fighter Pilot
Manufacturing Engineer

 

[ewh]

Use expressions to link the hole depth to the cylinder diameter.

Thanks for the heads up, John. Old habits are hard to break!

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. - [small]Thomas Jefferson [/small]

 

[fighterpilot]

ewh,

Yes, I know I can use an expression. The information I need to control the stopping surface is already in the model. Why can't I just tell it to stop there at all times w/o the expression? It's just more non-value added work for me.

If that's all it can do then I guess I'm stuck.

--
Fighter Pilot
Manufacturing Engineer

 

[fighterpilot]

JohnRBaker,

A bit off topic but I don't have another way to get a hold of you. What NX training classes, or path of classes, would you recommend for someone with nearly 15 years on Pro/E and 3 years on CATIA V5 who needs to make the switch to UGNX5?

Thanks...

--
Fighter Pilot
Manufacturing Engineer

 

[JohnRBaker]

The behavior for 'Until Selected' to work on models like rings and pipes where the hole goes through only one side has been corrected in NX 6.

As for your question about training, even with someone with your experience, I would take a class covering the basics of modeling and assemblies, and depending on whether you will be doing more complex free-form surfacing, perhaps something which included that as well.

for a complete list of instructor-led classes that is offered by Siemens PLM Software at our training centers, go to:

http://training.ugs.com/finder/ilt_list.shtml

Or you could pick from our self-paced CAST offerings.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
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.

 

[JohnRBaker]

An update on my last comment with respect to recommended classes.

Yesterday I was walking past our classrooms here in Cypress, CA, and when I do that I generally stop and check the names of the classes being taught and the list of companies who have students in class. It turns out that they were teaching a class that I was not aware of titled 'NX Design for the Experienced CAD User'. This sounds exactly like the type of class that you should be looking into attending.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
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.

 

[hudson888]

That is a good idea for a class actually. There is a world of difference in training users from different systems who already understand 3D concepts but have a range of inherited expectations as opposed to users who are starting out for the first time.

Cheers

Hudson

 

[fighterpilot]

John,

Yes, I'd see the NX for Exp Users class and thought that may be beneficial. It looks like the majority of the classes are in NX6. We won't be moving to NX6 anytime soon and may skip it all together. If I take it in NX6 how much would transfer down to NX5?

Thanks...

--
Fighter Pilot
Manufacturing Engineer

 

[JohnRBaker]

Except for Synchronous Modeling, most of what you would learn in an NX 6 class would be valid for NX 5. It would be much harder to take an NX 5 class and then try to take what you had learned and apply it to NX 4. Granted, there would be a few items, such as Move Object, Point Sets, Replay, Split Body, Design in Context, Additional Expression Types, etc, which are part of NX 6 which were not in NX 5, but not all of these would probably be covered in that 5 day class for experienced users anyway. If I were you and I could get into a class, I'd go for it and just explain to the instructor your situation and I'm sure they would point our where the differences were as you went along. I would expect that fully 80% - 90% would be totally relevant for anyone having to run NX 5.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
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.

 

[NXMold]

I took the 'NX Design for the Experienced CAD User' class in cypress, it was a great class and there is no way I would have jumped into NX without it. I was coming from ~7 years of pro-e, you should have taken it at day one in NX, but I think you would benefit quite a bit from it still.

However, it does leave off at a Very basic introductory level, and I have not found any training that goes into the depth that I wanted (including the so-called 'advanced' classes). Having many years expierience with a system like proe, you learn millions of little tricks, tips, techniques, and methods to get things done. Many of which are a bastardization of the system, undocumented, based on bugs, specific to your workflow, and so on. I finally conceded that only time will teach me what I want to know about NX, and it will probably be about two years before I'm as comfortable as I want to be.

I'm over ten months into it now, and still learning rapidly, but I'm pretty comfortable and productive. The two year goal still seems reasonable.

NX 5.0.3.2 MoldWizard

 

[acciardi]

We took the 'NX for experienced CAD users' class in house, and I think it was too basic. It was a one week class, but myself and a few others had already figured out everything covered in the class on our own by just playing around and using the built-in help (which is excellent, btw).

There's really no substitute for steady usage.