@andrewdroth wrote:
Wow, you have a lot of things going on in that part man.
What version of IV are you using?
Let's start with what you ultimately need. It looks like a two part plastic piece that clamps over the end of a spoon. What clearance should there be between the spoon and the plastic? What is the nominal thickness of the plastic?
What part were you referencing to make this part?
I think I'd try and model the whole plastic part as one piece then do a shell to hollow it out, and a split to make it two pieces. I just don't know how many things are governing it's geometry.
There are a lot of things going on in the model because of all the attempts I've made to work around the issues, solve the issues and avoid the issues. I will break things done in an attempt to get us further along.
I am using Inventor 2018.
Some of your questions were answered in the original post. I will try to reiterate more explicitly. I have tendonitis so typing is quite painful for me. Let us begin.
You are correct--as per the current state of the model. You are looking at two plastic-like pieces that will clamp over the spoon. There are no features in the current model to accomplish the task of clamping the two parts because these are not critical elements to solve the issues.
The spoon thickness fluctuates between 1mm and 1.3mm so, the void should be 1.3mm with 0.006 inches for expansion/contraction tolerance around the entire spoon area (top, bottom and around the outer edges). Therefore, the void should be 1.3mm + 0.006in tolerance around the entire spoon surface where the two plastic parts cover the spoon. The clearance is 0.006in between the plastic parts and the spoon. For the record, these will not be plastic--this is just a basis to allow us to continue moving through the motions.
The nominal thickness of the plastic parts is 1mm, no less. The thickness can increase to 1.5mm--no more--if necessary. I would much rather keep the thickness at 1mm if possible.
I am not sure what you mean by asking what I am referencing to make this part. Please elaborate. The spoon is correct. The only thing I didn't do to the spoon was add the 0.006in tolerance (you referred to the tolerance as clearance) so the tolerance would be included when subtracting it from the two plastic parts to create the void/shelling effect. Which, leads to your next concern.
I did attempt to model this as one solid model followed by a shell and split command. However, Inventor would not perform the task. So, I copied the spoon to create a duplicate solid of the spoon that was to be used with the combine command to subtract the copied spoon from the solid plastic cover. After successfully accomplishing this task, I attempted to split the single solid plastic part in an attempt to convert it into two parts.
Lastly, let's discuss what governs the geometry. Everything discussed above governs the geometry. The first sketch in the model tree named SPOON _ORIGINAL SKETCH acts as the base for the "split sketches" (left and right sides of the oval from the preceding sketch) which created the loft for the spoon surface. The split sketches are located in the model tree under the lofts named LoftSrf_SPOON and LoftSrf_HANDLE. The thicken command was used to convert the spoon surface into a solid model and is located in the model tree named Thicken39. Directly below Thicken39 is Thicken50--which was used to begin modeling the plastic parts. I then thickened the outer faces to widen the Thicken50 result in order to make the plastic parts wide enough to adequately cover the spoon at the appropriate thickness. Everything below Thicken50 is me attempting to work my way through the plethora of problems that surfaced throughout the modeling process. I also created new sketches at the appropriate dimensions to create the plastic parts. I used the same approach as I did to create the spoon. However, the same problems resulted. I also lofted the neck of the plastic parts to an offset work plane that was tangent to oval shape of the plastic parts--same result. There is no need to send all the various models that ended as failed attempts and similar results. This is just a waste of everyone's time. I believe the best approach is for someone to use the dimensional information and written information within the provided model and this thread to successfully develop the plastic parts as suggested. I can then assess the successful model to see what I did wrong and/or what I could have done differently. I know this is a challenge, maybe not for everyone, but for many. I do hope we can ban together to solve the issues. I look forward to your responses. Thank you all in advance.