Alternate ways to thicken a loft

[jeffrey.luci]

Hello everyone:

I created the part in the attached ipt file. The last step is a loft which I would like to thicken by 2mm. Unfortunately, no matter which parameters I choose (my tolerances are very flexible, so I went through the lot of them), Inventor 2022 fails to create the feature. I use this feature frequently (thickening a loft) and this is the very first time I've had a problem. I thought about starting with creating the inner surface and thickening outward, and creating a new solid from two enclosed surfaces, but before I sink that time in, I just thought I'd poll this community to see if anyone had a better idea, or sees why this might be a problem. I sure don't.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[jeffrey.luci]

Hello everyone:

I created the part in the attached ipt file. The last step is a loft which I would like to thicken by 2mm. Unfortunately, no matter which parameters I choose (my tolerances are very flexible, so I went through the lot of them), Inventor 2022 fails to create the feature. I use this feature frequently (thickening a loft) and this is the very first time I've had a problem. I thought about starting with creating the inner surface and thickening outward, and creating a new solid from two enclosed surfaces, but before I sink that time in, I just thought I'd poll this community to see if anyone had a better idea, or sees why this might be a problem. I sure don't.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[WHolzwarth · Accepted solution]

Perhaps a shelled separate body for the loft and boolean combine could be the way.

[WHolzwarth · Accepted solution]

Perhaps a shelled separate body for the loft and boolean combine could be the way.

[Lucas.dolinarVFXZU · Accepted solution]

I have attached a slightly cleaner Solution to (what i think) is what you are after.

But the combine throws an error and its probably because of this Intersection? cant say for sure...

To your Question about why its not working:
i dont know what you did instead of this Loft that you wanted to Thicken originally? But often times the problem Thicken has is related to:
the Combining with other shapes -> create as a new Body

the curvature of the Shape is too high (self intersection) -> change shape / Thickness

singularities within the Background calculations of these complex surfaces -> dont use Loft

 

[Lucas.dolinarVFXZU · Accepted solution]

I have attached a slightly cleaner Solution to (what i think) is what you are after.

But the combine throws an error and its probably because of this Intersection? cant say for sure...

To your Question about why its not working:
i dont know what you did instead of this Loft that you wanted to Thicken originally? But often times the problem Thicken has is related to:
the Combining with other shapes -> create as a new Body

the curvature of the Shape is too high (self intersection) -> change shape / Thickness

singularities within the Background calculations of these complex surfaces -> dont use Loft

 

[jeffrey.luci]

Thanks for the help! The patches seem to avoid the errors, and I was able to generate a printable STL file from the solids.

[jeffrey.luci]

Thanks for the help! The patches seem to avoid the errors, and I was able to generate a printable STL file from the solids.