Help Dimension Ellipse Drawing

[brooksam]

Hi, I'm trying to dimension an ellipse in the Inventor Drawing Feature. I've attached the .idw files. (sorry the .ipt is too large)

I'm fairly new at Inventor, only a year or so experience, so forgive me for being new. I am aware that the ellipse doesn't have a constant radius and was wondering what is accepted practice for these dimensions?

I need to first dimension the external elliptical shape (which I'm struggling at), might just add a note.

Secondly I'm trying to dimension the mesh part, its not centrally align to the part and since I can't put a center mark on I'm not sure how I should dimension this...

I'd really appreciate any help.

Thanks

[JDMather]

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@brooksam wrote:

 (sorry the .ipt is too large)

... and since I can't put a center mark on I'm not sure how I should dimension this...

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I doubt it is too large.  Did you roll up the EOP before saving and zipping?

I would probably use Retrieve Dimensions (from the original sketch) since part of the ellipse is now cut out and this would give the major and minor axis lengths.

As well for the center point - create in sketch in the part file and retrieve the sketch (right mouse button).

In the part file drag the red End of Part marker to the top of the browser hiding all features.

Save the file with the EOP in this rolled up state.

Right click on the file name and select Send to Compressed (zipped) Folder.

Attach the resulting *.zip file here if you can't figure out how to retrieve model dimensions and sketches into drawings.
 

[Cadmanto]

Sam,

Welcome to the forum.

What part exactly are you having issues with?

once these dimensions are in your sketch, just insert them into your drawing.

[brooksam]

See attached

[brooksam]

I think I'll have to just dimension the Major and Minor axis then work with my machine shop to produce the correct part.

[SBix26]

Here's my attempt.  I created a view sketch, placed a full ellipse and constrained it to the outer profile, then created another partial ellipse (elliptical arc) in the gap and constrained it to the full ellipse.  The full ellipse is set to Sketch Only so it doesn't show in the view, and the partial is set to Dimension style.  This now shows the profile of the full ellipse and gives something to dimension the minor axis to.  I also included the Z axis of the model in the view so there's a center point to dimension to.

As for dimensioning, a high-end CNC machine will be able to produce an ellipse, but lesser machines (or manual...!) will have to approximate it by a series of circular arcs.