Is there a round feature?

[dplachinski]

I put this out to the modeling community, but thought I would share here as well.

How do you manufacturing guys get around this? Is there any Pro/Wire guys in this group?

We come across this issue every once in awhile in our Wire EDM Department. The wire needs a straight line radius because the wire should not bend.

Is there a round feature that will give us a point to point constant round between these two primitives.

A cone being intersected by a tapered cube. 

When we add a constant round the resulting (long) edges of the round become bent.

When looking from the top they look like this.

Here I created a boundary blend (yellow edges) between the upper cure and the lower cure (short edges of the round) to shot what result we are looking for. You can clearly see the bend in the long edges.

Is there a round feature that will give me the straight long edges of the round. Or, is this just impossible.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Dan

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[gkoch]

Hello Dan,

It seems feedback came only for your other post in modelling : Is There A Round Feature?
... which should be OK, as it is mainly about modelling the part exactly as it would be realistically cut.

Probably the "manufacturing guys" don't bother so much, if the modelled geometry cannot be created exactly as it would be machined. Machining is always a kind of approximation (I guess that's what tolerances are for).

Or all participants went for the other thread to avoid splitting discussions, which is a good idea and actually is why I put the link into my post.

Regards,

Gunter

[TomD.inPDX]

Oddly enough, a wire EDM can make cones curved by tilting the wire.  This is almost easier to mill.

The draft on this sample will make wire EDM somewhat complex,  The change in orientation as you go around the part could be a programmer's nightmare f the software is not designed for it.

Why 2 posts?  Modeling and fabrication techniques are better covered in one post, specially since this has already come to the forefront.

[TomD.inPDX]

If the wire EDM machine uses an X-Y-R stage, and the wires is angled, you will need this method:

Re: Is There A Round Feature?

Super-simple version attached.

[NickMihelich]

Yes the feature you are looking for is a blend.  We do this every day with our Agie wires. Your can create same size radii for the top and bottom profiles or you can have different sizes and it will still create conical or wire friendly geometry.

[dplachinski · Accepted solution]

Thanks Nick,

I think this may be the way to go. I have mocked up a few different versions of a stripper block and core insert for our wire department to look at for programming. If all goes well with the "bled" approach we will have a solution and maybe a new process to create wired inserts.

Thanks,

Dan

[dplachinski]

This method was preferred by our wire department. There is one drawback, but it doesn't seem to affect the Wire EDM programming. The drawback is, the created radius is not a true diametric shape ( you can not put an axis through it).