Need help to cut specific grooove in cylinder

[Anonymous]

Hello. I'm trying to cut "half-circle" shaped groove, within cylinder.

Here is an example of that groove, cut in block:

Sweep circle along desired path

Cut it from block

But i need initial path to be "wrapped" around cylinder, like this:

Once I try to sweep circle along path "wrapped" around circle, it complains to self-intersection.

Any ideas are appreciated - how do I get exactly same groove as i got in block, cut from cylinder?

I've tryed also to unfold sheet-metal from cylinder to plane, cut my groove and re-fold it back. But during re-fold, groove distorts too much.

Also i've attached my faulty flow screencast, just in case it helps to understand what i'm trying to achieve.

Resulting body tends to be used in mechanism, like in this click pen .

Thanks.

[davebYYPCU]

Sketch fillet 0.25mm is the obvious restriction,

I can get 0.4 mm cut groove, nowhere near your desired size.  2nd pic

I don't think this is what you want, 1st pic.

Might help....

[Anonymous]

Hi, @davebYYPCU , thanks for your attention.

Second pic looks similar to what I want to achieve. I've also managed to make such small groove, but I really need one with 3.5mm circle radius. Trying to apply press-pull with negative values to such small groove fails as well.

First pic is not what desired, as you mentioned.

It's somehow strange, that sketch fillet 0.25mm is NOT an restriction, while sketch itself is planar. But once this sketch is embossed (debossed?) in cylinder, resulting curved path is unable to act in swap operation.

[TheCADWhisperer]

https://youtu.be/Wekmai5MqFM

[Anonymous]

@TheCADWhisperer , thanks for your support.

I've tested your approach, and, after setting the "K Factor" in sheet material rules, i've got much closer to desired result, than with default sheet material parameters.

Visually resulting groove looks almost identical to what I want. Yet, distortion after folding remains, and doesn't fit ball (that is used instead of pin) preciesely.

Also, if I chooose surface tab, instead of solid - then I'm able to create desired body surface, using sweep operation, with some overlapping inside it. I'm able also to convert it to solid, with some unwanted holes inside of it. But I dont managed if there is some bolean logic, that could help getting rid of unwanted overlapped areas, so that I can 'heal' this body, before cutting it from cylinder.

[davebYYPCU]

Short of resorting to Inventor - I went a different way, 

Manufacture, 2d contour with wrap, there is no centre line option to cut the groove, so reduced the emboss by cutter radius, then saved out the resulting stock as STL, 

not sure you can work further with it, but file is attached.

Might help....

[davebYYPCU]

Forgot to include second pic, and would not load into 1st reply.