STL Surface for manufacturing

[NutAce]

Hi peeps,

I have a question about optimizing surfaces for manufacturing. Specially STL surfaces.
I remember from Loooooong ago, when I was still using the manufacturing application in NX (twas UG16 or NX1 if I remember correctly), that surfaces made out of a lot of small area's were an issue for manufacturing.
Is this still the case ? or are CAM packages able to deal with that in the mean time.

Anyhew.... When you look at the picture you see an STL surface, converted into sheet bodies, which I would like to optimize.
Looking for tips and tricks to , preferably, combine this into a smooth single area surface.
Sewing is working but then I still have that STL Mesh area's.

Ronald van den Broek
Senior Application Engineer
Winterthur Gas & Diesel Ltd
NX9 / TC10.1.2

Building new PLM environment from Scratch using NX12 / TC11

 

[Tingsryd]

Are you working from scanned data of a prismatic part? Just as with solids, if you start with a bad STL model it will create a more work and problems for you. There is no perfect solution for this natively in NX that I am aware of. There is software that can do it but it can be expensive so if you do not perform this work often then you might consider hiring someone to convert it for you. Converting STL directly into faces is not a good idea and there has been discussion on this on other forums. Generally it can take a lot of work and the results are not very good.

Have you tried programming your model as a STL? There are no planar faces so operation such as face milling do not work but I have found operations on STL bodies to generally calculate very well and behave similar as if the STL is a single nurbs surface.

We occasionally do STL work for one of our customers and have been successfully programming with them for a long time. Siemens has been putting a lot of development into mesh modeling because of the popularity of printing parts and NX STL modeling has been enhanced in every version. When I am programming STL bodies I never convert them faces and solids. You can do that but it can be expensive, not to mention time consuming. Some CAM software work with STL bodies but the performance can vary. As I said earlier I have had great success machining STL but some colleagues seem to struggle with anything other than roughing operations.









NX 12.0.2
Testing 1899
EVP's

 

[NutAce]

The model originated as a 3D printing model. I would like to machine it out of Aluminum however.
So far I have been able (with some help of a friend who owns the software) to convert it into a Solid body.
If those triangular surfaces don't pose a problem for manufacturing I will leave them as such.




Ronald van den Broek
Senior Application Engineer
Winterthur Gas & Diesel Ltd
NX9 / TC10.1.2

Building new PLM environment from Scratch using NX12 / TC11

 

[Tingsryd]

I just noticed you are on NX9 but I do not recall having any cam issues in 9 and we have been programming STL bodies for one of our customers for a long time. As I mentioned earlier they seem to behave much like a single nurbs surface. You will notice automatic cut levels will see many, many levels that probably are not significant. I tend to use z-level profile with cut between levels turned on and also fixed contour works well. Much like problems that can arise with solids, the body needs to be clean as possible when programming.

You might take a look at the new convergent technology in NX. There is new facet modeling functionality such as trimming a solid with a facet body, changing overall size and shape as well as other great functionality.

NX 12.0.2
Testing 1899
EVP's

 

[NutAce]

Thanks! I am just "preparing" the model for manufacturing (in NX12). Not doing it myself. But it is always good to know of course.
I already contacted some manufacturers for pricing and they don't see any issues with the surfaces.



Ronald van den Broek
Senior Application Engineer
Winterthur Gas & Diesel Ltd
NX9 / TC10.1.2

Building new PLM environment from Scratch using NX12 / TC11