Tall Order: Emboss Logo/Text onto Sphere with Draft.

[nick.anderson.co]

Alright, I have a tall order, and based on a lookie around past posts, I don't know if there's an easy way to do this (please prove me wrong). I'm trying to get a two-dimensional text-based logo embossed onto a spherical solid, and I need to have control over the draft angle for the purpose of injection molding, AND I want it look good...

Alright, here we go. I got close on my first go, but it was very hacky and sloppy and was rejected by the mold makers for small undercuts, and still didn't have the proper draft.

The skinny version of what I did to get as far as I did. I thickened the face of the sphere into a new solid to be the body of the embossed logo/text, we'll call it 'LogoBody'. I did this twice for an intermediate step in getting the final embossed logo, we'll call it 'IntBody'.

I created an angled work plane above the sphere and put the logo on there (guess-and-check modified on an arc to help it wrap around the sphere).

I then extruded an intersection of the logo through IntBody.

I then created a work plane parallel to the XY plane and projected the logo onto that.

And then I extruded an intersection of that through the LogoBody essentially making LogoBody's upper face match up with IntBody's but with the body extruded down along the Z axis eliminating undercuts, but with a zero degree draft.

I then combined the original body, LogoBody, and IntBody because it reduced the 'shrapness' of the upper edges of the letters. The results... meh... it's mostly okay, and the undercuts are tiny, and I'm sure I could try to fudge bunch faces with the Direct Edit tool until they mold makers accept the part. But this is hacky and time consuming and sloppy.

I'm thinking there might be a good solution using surfaces, but I've hardly used them before. So I would love some advice for how to approach this problem, things to consider, tools that might be use. Or please tell me that there's a hidden tool somewhere specifically for embossing 2D logos onto spheres. Please... 

If it can't be done then I'm joining the Flat Earth Society.

Thanks!

Nick

[Fouad-l]

Hi.

Have you attempted to creat a BOSS from plastic part command (only Professional version of inventor). First you have to activate it :

This is an overlook of plastic design in inventor : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-j3hHKC2Es

If you dont have a professional version you can do this workaround :

- Create a 3d Sketch and project your 2D sketch curves on the face.

-From the curves you have projected create Boundary Patches, selecting each closed loop separately:

- Then give a thikness to these surfaces.

I think this video will help you :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSMJMMu_OV4

[TheCADWhisperer]

Split Face

Thicken

But I see errors in your history that I would address first.

Can you -

right click on the End of Part marker and delete everything below the EOP (on a back-up file of course).

and then attach that *.ipt file here?

[nick.anderson.co]

I'm using Inventor Pro 2018.

Solutions like these at best emboss the text either normal to the surface it's projected on, or normal to the sketch it's projected from. Leaving huge undercuts. At a minimum I need to be able eliminate the undercut by tapering the embossed feature, like extruding a prism with a draft angle. The magical tool that I would really like would be able to control which edges get drafted how much (though, I can't even begin to imagine what that tool would look like). This is so that I can achieve that 1 degree draft relative to the z axis below the text, but also I could have a sharper upper edge of the embossed text (ideally I could control how sharp this is).

I've been playing with creating a surface of the text face at the embossed height above the spherical shape, and using the ruled surface tool, which allows you to control the angle it does it's thing (sorry, using surfaces is very new to me, as is the lingo). Then using that surface to split the thickened body I made for the embossed feature. I think this will work, but I don't have control over the the angle coming off the different edges, but I can live with that.

I feel like this must be a somewhat common thing that the plastics peeps are doing. There's no way I'm the one pioneering this. I'll post more about what I'm doing once I have a clue of how to explain it without sounding like a newb.

Thanks!

Nick

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Nick,

If I were you, I would use Ruled Surface. The command was designed to tackle requirements like this. In some cases, you might want to use edge-edge Loft Surface if Ruled Surface does not generate satisfying result. If you want, feel free to send me the part directly ([email protected]). I can take a look and see if there are better workflows.

Many thanks!