Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

Keep in mind I've only been at this for 3 months now. ;p

So I've had hard time getting some actual advice from my teachers and have nobody else on my design team(I'm flying solo) for guidance.  All we really do in school is copy simple shapes/drawings with a set of instructions to guide us.  We don't have a CMM here either so I've been measuring things with a set of digital calipers and some oddball methods I've devised from my woodworking tools(framing square, bevel gauge,etc.).

If you guys are bored or just want to be nice guys , could you guys give me some input on this model I did?  Could I have done things differently?  Features organized?  Difficult to manufacture?

I just feel like my browser tree is cluttered and my file size could be smaller if I did extrudes instead of sweeps and vice versa.  Don't be afraid to be tough on me. I won't cry lol.

[#2]

Good job.

I suspect that you do not really need the workpoints.

[#3]

Thanks.  I was kinda testing something out with the work points after watching some videos on using point clouds.  I originally would just use my original profile sketch to project and continually share the sketch but wasn't sure if that was too sloppy.  I'm trying to be more analytical about my methods so my models don't crash if I need to alter dimensions down the line.

[#4]

I often go back and refine my models from scratch once I understand the geometry (read Steve Wozniak's book).

Your design (not considering design for manufacturability) is better than 99% of the work I see posted here (and assuming it will perform the function for which it was designed).  What is this?  How will it be manufactured? Material?

[#5]

It is the upper part of a "crop lifter".  They attach to combines and foragers and float along the ground to lift stalk crops that have been blown over in the wind.  It will most likely be cast of malleable iron and further machined on surfaces surrounding the holes I need to place yet.  

The model is incomplete because the size of it was hitting 2mb.  The geometry of the curvature was so difficult to derive until I read a post on here about surface modeling.  I may not post often but I'm on here everyday reading of other people problems and solutions for everything lol.

[#6 · Accepted solution]

2MB is not particularly large (I have a 40MB file that works fine).

I suspect this file could be made smaller through different techniques, but not much smaller.

You might go into Inventor Tooling (create new Mold.iam file) and treat it as though the material was plastic and examine draft (this can also be done without going into Tooling) - just for experience.  Also you can account for shrinkage on cooling.

FEA and/or Dynamic Simulations might be other areas you want to get into with this model.

An FEA would be impressive on Resume.

Dynamic Simulation creates great animations when pushed into Inventor Studio (in addition to being able to perform Motion Loads FEA analysis).