Having Problems When Trying to Use "Pattern on Path" on a Helix

[nathanarndt95]

I'm having trouble when I make a body follow a helical path. It works okay when the orientation is set to identical as you can see on the left, but when I switch it to path direction, it starts flaring out as shown on the right. Is there an easy fix for this?

[TrippyLighting]

Make sure the origin of the object you want to pattern coincides with the start of the path you want to pattern it along. That often helps.

[nathanarndt95]

Thanks for the reply! I'm still having trouble with this. As you can see in this picture here I had the body centered at the top of the path, but as I pull it down along the path, the new bodies are rotating. What I am trying to do is have them rotate around the helix, but still stay parallel to the floor.

[SaeedHamza]

Hi,

I don't really understand you man, if you choose identical you will get what you want, I mean a body going down a helix and parallel to the ground at the same time, so why bother try the path direction ?

Here's a picture about what I'm explaining

[nathanarndt95]

Ah, I should have explained better. If you look at the top-right of the first picture under this, you can see how the faces at the end of the cylinders are facing the center axis. That is what I need, but I also need the sides of the cylinders to be parallel with each other (as they are in the top-left of the photo).  My goal, if you can look at the second photo, is to make a big cylinder like that one, but instead of having a bunch of rectangular holes cut in it in circular rows, I want to have a bunch of cylindrical holes cut in a helical pattern along it. The big cylinder is going to be like a large roller in a music box and I am going to use the holes so that I can stick pegs in them to make custom songs.

I hope this makes sense. I appreciate the help.

[SaeedHamza]

oh I see,

I get it now that I tried to do this, it's my 1st time to face such a problem actually because I never needed to do such a thing in my models, but I recommend you ( if you didn't find an answer for this ) to use a circular pattern and then a rectangular one ( picture below ), but it won't be of a helix path though, and I don't think it's gonna be a problem because it will be hardly noticeable.

kind regards, Saeed.

[SaeedHamza]

check this out, same as your problem ...

got to figure this out 😕

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/design-validate-document/components-along-spiral-path/td-p/7045320

[nathanarndt95]

Yes, this is tricky. Thanks for the help though!

[SaeedHamza]

Check this article, I don't know if the script has been released yet, but will absolutely solve this issue

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autodeskhelp/creating-a-helix-around-a-3d-curve-with-fusion-360-amp-p...

[nathanarndt95]

Alright, Thanks!

[adamsd5]

I got the script to work to create a helix path, but I have the same problem.  The object I'm patterning around the helix rotates in ways I don't want it to.  I'll keep playing.