I have a sweep using a 3D sketch. The sweep will form "rails" for a ball run. I have attached my part and picture. I assume I have to use a guide surface to prevent the rails from twisting as shown. Ideally I would like them to end as shown in the sketch in the lower right corner. Any help in accomplishing this would be great.
If somebody has a better method that would be great too.
(The run is not exact nor finished and the there are extra unconstrained sketches in the part file.)
Thanks,
Rob
Inv 2013 Pro
Solved! Go to Solution.
Solved by glenn-chun. Go to Solution.
Hi RobJV
I had a quick go at this (made up part), I used a 2D sweeped profile as a guide surface for the
main sweep.
Hope this helps
Cheers
Mark
Inventor 2013
I personally would make each rail its own part, and make this whole thing an assembly.
In the real world, this would not be a single part.
I've always told my students that they can never go wrong by mimicing the real world.
Yes, of course I will be making these as separate parts. (This can still be done as a single part and broken up.)
I went through and created my own set of ball rails. I only noticed one mistake in your sample that may help others. Work Plane 2 should be built off of the top line of sketch 2 and not the angled line. This will ensure that the track cannot intersect itself. Thanks again for leading me down the right path!
Morning Rob,
My Bad that one (well spotted), here is an updated model. Glad it helped.
Cheers
Mark
Inventor 2013
Hi Mark, Rob,
The sweep body in rail-02.ipt does not correctly pass the required cross-sectional profiles. See rail-02-check-cross-sections.ipt.
I recommend to use the pull-direction sweep (aka plane normal sweep) in this case. Here's how I created the attached rail-03.ipt: Open rail-02.ipt. Make the XY Plane visible. Edit the Sweep1. Press the Guide Surface button. While pressing the Ctrl key, select the existing selection of the guide surface. Now the arrow button should turn red because the guide surface selection has been deleted. Click the XY Plane. Hit OK. This will create a sweep body whose cross-sectional profile orientations are controlled by the Z-Axis direction.
In rail-03-check-cross-sections.ipt, you can see the sweep body correctly pass the required cross-sectional profiles.
For the pull-direction sweep, the path doesn't have to lie on the plane or planar face used as a guide surface. Inventor passes the normal vector of the plane to ASM, not the plane or planar face. Only the vector information is important for the pull-direction sweep. When the guide surface is curved, the path should lie on the surface which is passed to ASM.
Hope this helps,
Glenn
ASM Development
Morning Glenn,
I followed your example using the XY plane, I also deleted the un-used guide surface. That’s a great example, I will be printing this to file away in my book of “did you knows Tip-bit’s”
Cheers
Mark
Hi Glenn,
Thanks for the details. I have adjusted my model as well. Great to know about the vector information.
Rob
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