Making a coil with waves?

[RobertWK]

I'm trying to think of a way to make a metallic mesh flex connector, and I'm thinking that if I can get a coil shape with an oscillating line, I could repeat that a lot around a circular pattern.

Alternatively if there was a way to twist an extrusion, around a centric axis, that might also work as well.

Has anyone considered a way to do this?

[JDMather]

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RobertWK wrote: 

Has anyone considered a way to do this? 

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Many solutions have been posted here in the past - a search might turn up some examples.

Can you attach an image or url to something similar to your need?

Can you attach your *.ipt attempt here?

[RobertWK]

[JDMather]

Are you trying to do the inside or the outside?

Do you have a compelling reason for modeling the geometry (forget the woven mesh) or will a cosmetic texture reference be good enough for your need?

[RobertWK]

Outside. I suppose a cosmetic reference would be sufficient. It's kind of a "can this be done, and how well" idea.

[JDMather]

Not worth the effort to model.

Would bring the machine to its knees if it can be done.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! For the exterior mesh, if you want to model it in 3D solid, it would require around 1000+ faces (rough estimate), which could increase file size significantly. Each face has to be named and tagged and be associative to the generating feature. Like JD suggested, you would be better off using a decal or texture.

Thanks!

[RobertWK]

Would that still be the case if it was done with a surface as opposed to an extrusion?

[JDMather]

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@RobertWK wrote:

Would that still be the case if it was done with a surface as opposed to an extrusion?

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Why would it be any different with surface modeling?

[RobertWK]

I figured out a way to use equation curves and boundary patches to make this happen.  Now I only have to figure out a way to make it cylindrical. I probably should have made it as a sheet metal part.

[wimann]

I agree with everyone else. Possible? Yes. Practical? No.

[RobertWK]

What was the final file size/memory footprint?

[wimann]

Well I played around with that model a little more (trying to make it into a working template), and while I'm not sure that all the features were left active, I can tell you the size of the file is roughly 10Mb.

[RobertWK]

Through some recursive file editing and and deriving, I've attempted to make one using 3D sketches and math equations, with only using boundary loops and surfaces.  So far I'm at about 900k, though now there are 5 files in total. You only have to edit the dimensions in three of them however to attain a result. It takes some tweaking, and in the end I plan to only extract a cross section of the mesh to get what I'm looking for.

thing8.ipt is the 3D sketch of one line.

CURVE_ITEM.iam is the assembly of two 3D sketches, offset by an arc line.

SPIRAL_WAVE.ipt and SPIRAL_WAVE3.ipt are just the surfaces.

MESH.iam is the assembly of all the surfaces.