Attempting to created a 3D tapered curved seal for security camera

[jehully33]

Greetings brain trust,

I'm a novice user, took one solidworks class a couple of years ago, and I've successfully created a few designs in Fusion v2601.0.90 x86_64 over the last couple of weeks. The forums and the like have been quite helpful so far, and I'm very willing to do the hard yards to gain knowledge (teach a man to fish is my preferred way to really learn things). However.. as a PLC/Automation/Electrical guy I don't even have the language to ask this question, so I appreciate your patience, and will cheerfully accept your hazing as part of the process 😁.

The part is intended to loosely seal a curved tapered area around a spherical body of a security camera. The mfg inexplicably left an opening to the interior of the camera mount as a potential bald faced hornet hotel, meaning every maintenance job will guarantee an exciting experience, all while on a ladder 20' off the ground. Can you suggest some starting points on how to create such a shape, and search terms for future reference so I can avoid spamming the list?

For reference, the spherical ball holding the actual camera brains/lens is approximately 250mm in diameter, the lower lip of the 'smile' is about 100mm long, and at the widest point the gap is about 7mm deep. Pictures attached to show the area I'm trying to fill with a 3D printed part. This will not be load bearing beyond having a simple retention clip of some sort to hold the part in place with the camera hung correctly. Camera is upside down as seen in these pictures (attached).

TIA!!

Jim

[TheCADWhisperer]

@jehully33 

Can you File>Export your *.f3d file of your attempt to model the geometry to your local drive and then Attach it here to a Reply?

[jehully33]

I'd love to.. but again, I don't even know where to start or what tools to use. Everything I've muscled my way through to this point has used the more what I would consider to be - by my current experience - 'conventional' tools that you can do with brute force the first time and once close to finished go back and eliminate about 50% of the steps the first pass involved.

I tried drawing a cylinder, a sphere, and a few other things but from there I was a stranger in a strange land..

[TheCADWhisperer]

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@jehully33 wrote:

I'd love to.. but again, I don't even know where to start or what tools to use. Everything I've muscled my way through to this point has used the more what I would consider to be - by my current experience - 'conventional' tools that you can do with brute force the first time and once close to finished go back and eliminate about 50% of the steps the first pass involved.

I tried drawing a cylinder, a sphere, and a few other things but from there I was a stranger in a strange land..

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It sounds like you have made an honest attempt - that is all we need to see. It doesn't even have to be close.

There are certain "markers" that experienced users will see that will help in guiding you to a solution.  Otherwise, it must be assumed that this is the first day of class - and in the first day you go through the built in Tutorials to learn what the various tools in Fusion are used for. You can do that part on your own (ask questions if you run into trouble).  Then we can start to tackle the specific problem at hand. Does this make logical sense?

You have indicated a particular area...

More images will be needed.  Orthographic top, front and side images would be best.

Step 1.

Sketch a Vertical Centerline at the Origin and a Horizontal normal line at the Origin.

Post your progress file here for next steps.

[jehully33]

Sincerely appreciate the help so far!

As a guy that did 30+ years of support in my core disciplines, I get where you are going, and I have certainly seen 'I need help' mean "I want somebody to do 90% of it so I can say 'look what I did'" and inferred is "I'll be calling back again with the same questions in a couple of weeks". I take ZERO offense to you making sure I'm putting skin in the game.

As an act of good faith, please let me give you an example of what I've muscled my way through on this project so far with no outside assistance (beyond the forums/youtube). Here is the bracket I created for one of the cameras so it would hang horizontally under our 3/12 pitch soffit. And yes, I may be just a little paranoid about losing work, not to mention taking the long way around, hence the V25, LOL.

For this next step, if I might humbly rephrase my original request and ask if you could help me with vocabulary to help get me rolling as much as the workflow to get there? What would you call the types of processes needed to get where I'm going? With a few correct naming conventions I can speed up the process of searching for more information. Right now I'm the guy trying to use the dictionary to find the spelling of a word.. that I don't know how to spell.

Thanks again!

Jim

[jehully33]

Please find attached:

Exercise01

An attempt at creating a shape that could be cut into a seal.

Pictures of the camera from several angles.

[TheCADWhisperer]

@jehully33 

My preference would be to model the existing geometry exactly as it is and then tackle the design of the "improvement".

[jehully33]

Excellent! If you have some general suggestions on the steps/tools that would support that progression, I'll dig in and try to gain an understanding of how they function. My biggest stumbling point right now is not knowing how to search for operations that would support this kind of build out, since most everything I've done so far is simple shapes and curves, my vocabulary for generating the more complex shapes this seal would require is nil.

That was my motivation for creating the 'SealAttempt', as (unencumbered by any experience) I pictured one way might be to create a spherical inner boundary that matched the diameter of the camera, an approximation of the dimensions of the gap, and then created a projection I thought could be carved down to the size/shape I needed. I'm sure that is beyond crude, but if nothing else I got slightly more familiar with some of the tools I have little to no experience with.

To be clear, I'm not looking for a complete tutorial with a voice over included set of screen captures of each step, but more of brief list of the operations so I can go back to school. Is that a tenable solution? Again, my goal is to burden people like you as little as possible while I build experience.

[jehully33]

I took your advice and tried to model the pieces I could measure the most accurately and have some confidence in the end result, that being the camera ball and conical shroud. As I looked at the cut in the shroud it occurred to me that perhaps the curved cut wasn't quite as complex as I first thought, so I tried to find a practical way to find a curve that fit. Turns out a can of Teflon spray lube was very close. Using that diameter, defined a path that aligned with the angle of the lip, and I then applied a pipe tool to cut the curve and a second pipe tool to define the seal. As far as I can tell from comparing the actual part to the image, I think it's pretty close.

Now for the next challenge. I'm trying to find a way to cut along the lines shown in this image to arrive at a printable part for the gap, but I'm stuck. If I can make that cut and then delete the shroud/camera ball then the seal would be the remaining part, and I may be home free. Happy to accept alternative methods rather than my rather brute force options described.

Thanks!

Jim

[davebYYPCU]

Without being critical of a new user, you are working too hard. 

It is only a few dimensions to get you fully defined sketches.

When you know the app better, you will be able to use the right tool at the right time in the timeline and become efficient at accurate modelling.

Make a Sphere and then Delete it.   ??

Make a Sketch, don't use it to make another Sphere.

Only to have to Move it.

(Primitive bodies (Sphere) should be avoided.  Can be a fully defined semi-circle, and Revolved in the correct position, will be parametric as a bonus.

If you don't need a Sphere as end result, this Revolve can be as Cut into the Stand)

Making the stand worked out, then Modify > Combine - Cut the stand with the sphere (removes unwanted material).

You don't need the solid Pipe to cut the stand, when the Pipe > cut can do that.

Blue, orange and white sketch articles are going to be unstable, and can be click dragged out of position or shape (a benefit at times)

Check this version, (Sphere sticks out the bottom, but you did that)

Happy to answer questions.

Might help...

[jehully33]

First, my apologies for the long delay in responding. Life got in the way for a moment. 

As to being critical, no offense taken, you were absolutely correct, as I was feeling my way through so it was no surprise to me I was blundering around a little (OK, a LOT, lol). Your advice, however, was spot on, and very helpful.

As I understood it, I rethought the exercise to:

First create the pipe in the proper orientation.

Create a circle and revolve it to make the inside cut.

Create a trapezoid and revolve it to make the outside cut.

All that made sense, and was MUCH faster. I've explored that and got a printed part out of the result, and on the positive side the inner curve where the seal meets the sphere is perfect. It's a great start, but now I need to expand my vocabulary again to make the next update, which is to learn how to sweep the ends to follow a curve that is not constant. Can you give me a shove in the right direction for possible tools that I could explore to learn that aspect? 

Please see picture attached of the gray printed part so you can see the curve I'm trying to follow vs the one I got from a pure circle. As you will see the bottom of the curve is pretty close, and I am already printing a version with a slightly larger pipe diameter to match that even better, but the ends will still need to bend down to follow the contour.

Thanks again!

Jim

[davebYYPCU]

Not sure what you are asking about.  The red highlighted shape pipe cut shape is where I left off, looks like it has to go wider to locate with the top outside edge.

If I understand it, the Pipe is made with bigger diameter and then lifted to bring it into the new but correct position?  (This would be done by Edit Sketch and change the dimension, controlling pipe centre line.)

But first - my order of operation was to make the sketch. I didn't need the ball.

Using the correct portion of the sketch I revolved the profile, to make the Cup.

Then the Pipe > Cut was created to cut the mouth into the Cup.

Might help...

[jehully33]

Thanks for the clarification - I will take another cut at that to try to learn your method.

To clarify the bigger challenge right now is to try to learn how to alter the curve of the gray part. The bottom of the curve - shown in green - fits very well at the diameter I'm using. I need to learn how to open the curve further up so it follows the contour area in red. I can't just make the pipe larger, as then it would gap at the bottom green area instead of the red ends. Does that make sense?

Jim

[davebYYPCU]

Green / red diameter is bigger than the grey.

To keep the green position, you have to lift a bigger Pipe > cut up higher.

Might help...

[jehully33]

I may be barking up the wrong tree (again), but it appears to me the curve is not a constant diameter, as when I used a larger pipe it started to gap at the bottom green area. So, I attempted to create a contoured shape to match. This was another brute force attempt, but even with my crude attempts to create the path the shape is close, so I think if I can refine the path and clean up my workflow it might be workable? Shown here is a quick print to see if I was anywhere in the right area code. Some of the distortion is due to my printer using a very low res, so I also think if I make this a little thicker and he sets to a finer res it will improve a little.

I did find it interesting the inner revolve cut did not seem to create a consistent curve, but again, it was a late night quick and dirty attempt to prove the concept. If this does work the next challenge will be to create 90 degree 'fin' along the back edge path so it drops in to the space below and holds the seal in place.

Thoughts?

[jehully33]

Newer version I hope is a better attempt. Sending to my printer for test.

[davebYYPCU]

Not checked the new version.

Do you understand how my Pipe > Cut actually works?

What looks complicated is simple geometry.  In my sketch, there is a dimension, 16.25, you need a value there that works for you.

If you print my cup, and a matching Grey piece it all works as expected.  Cutting a circle through a curved face will give you a 3d ellipse edge, if, cutting an Ellipse through to tweak the curve, change the Pipe command to Sweep. “Your Ellipse”

Leaves me to believe it’s your black piece dimensions that are not accurate.

Might help….