Inventor Creating A Sweep Around Entire Tube Guide Surface Parallel To Plane

[Anonymous]

Hello all,

I am trying to use the sweep tool and create a sweep around this entire tube, but cant seem to keep it parallel to to Z plane of my model. I've created the profile along with the wires needed to create the sweep, but it keeps twisting and I cant seem to get a "guide surface" to work. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have tried using other threads and cant seem to figure it out. I've attached the ipt., but hopefully someone can show me how to create it and not just do if for me as I will use this feature quite regularly.

Thanks!

kelly.young has edited your subject line for clarity: Creating a Sweep

[Anonymous]

Sorry but my planes are off. I want it parallel to the projected line across the bottom of the sketch..

[S_May]

what do you want to do, please give a little sketch

[Anonymous]

I would like the bottom horizontal line of the sketch to stay parallel to the projected line across the bottom the entire way around the wire. I can get the sweep to work, but it rotates around and will be incredibly hard for my company to machine. I've attached a screenshot showing what I'm getting now which is what i don't want..the line circled should be parallel to the bottom line in my sketch.

[S_May]

sorry i do not understand it...

[Anonymous]

Thanks for trying. I used to use SolidWorks and I know for a fact they simply have a check box that says "keep normal" or something to that effect. Maybe Inventor just wasn't designed to do the same for a complex tube like this one. I understand the Path/Surface options, but it seems they only work with simple geometry like cylinders. 

[S_May]

Hi @johnsonshiue,

can you help?

[johnsonshiue · Accepted solution]

Hi! If I understood how SWX works, the equivalent option to "Normal" is "Path & Guide Surface." The issue here is that the imported wire path is not in good shape. There are a lot of G0 continuities and end points do not meet each other. "Path & Guide Surface" option requires the path to be at least G1 continuous (tangent). I am able to rebuild the 3D Sketch based on 3D Sketch1.

The attached part shows the solution. Sweep1_GuideSurface should be the one you are looking for. YZ plane is the guide surface (normal direction). As a contrast, SweepSrf1_PathOnly is the sweep without orientation control.

I love challenge like this, INV vs its competitors. INV has shortcomings for sure but it is also quite capable. You just need to know what options to use. I believe most professional-grade CADs are quite similar.

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Thanks for taking the time to look into this. Fortunately, I was able to find another way of doing this without using the sweep tool. I do think you have it correct though. I pulled the "Wires" from the CAD assuming they were the original ones used to create the part itself and figured it would be ok to use.

Thanks again, have a nice day!!