Lofting - Need Help!

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I have only recently started using Inventor, having briefly used SolidWorks in the past. I am currently having trouble using the loft function and was wondering if someone could shed some light on the situation. I keep getting errors, or it just doesn't work whenever I try to loft it. I don't think the problem is too complicated, so I've attached the part to see if someone can help me out. 

Essentially, I've been trying to loft the bottom outline to the top one. Meaning that I want the part to have a solid bottom (already extruded), with a hollow centre, while the sides look like the shapes on the sides. 

Any help would be greatly appreciated and let me know if I need to clarify anything!

Thanks a million,

Elizabeth

[jletcher]

Welcome to the forums.

 what version are you on will help a whole lot to get your question answered..

There are new options in new releases so without that would be hard to help....

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the quick response!

I'm using Autodesk Inventor Professional 2013

[Ryan.Martinez]

Maybe the shell command with some extruded cuts would be better for this? Looking at your model and trying to figure out what your after... I am still a bit confused

[Ryan.Martinez]

Like this?

[Anonymous]

Exactly! Did you do that with the shell command and extruded cuts?

I was wondering if there was a better way.

[Ryan.Martinez · Accepted solution]

Here is the file. Use two extrudes. You could have used a shell but you already had the sketch of the walls there so i just used that. Let me know if you cant figure it out.

[Anonymous]

Great way to do it! Thanks for the help

[JDMather]

You have too many dimensions - use Symmetry Constraints (or mirror) in Sketch1 (same as in SWx).

Sketch2 is not needed.

No dimensions are needed in Sketch3 to fully constrain (same as in SWx) and Sketch3 not really needed.

Workplanes not needed (one is a duplication of the XY Plane. (same as SWx)

Sketch4 only needs 2 dimensions. (same as SWx)

See attached file.