Making a Chain Lanyard with the Sweep Tool

[ThoRig]

Community,

Does anyone know how to make a chain lanyard using the Sweep tool.  The type of chain lanyard I want to model is the type you see to retain electrical caps after you unscrew the cap from a port.  This way the cap is not lost.  The chain would be similar to the old "dog-tag" chain issued my the armed forces.  Thanks in advance.

Chain Lanyard

[tbraxton]

A single sweep is probably not the best approach to model this. As an alternative you can define the strand that carries all of the spheres as a curve (planar, or 3D) and then do the following.

Create a datum point on the curve

Create a datum axis and plane through the point to be used to create the spheres with a revolve

Create the sphere using the pattern leader point from the first step

Group the axis, plane, and revolve used for the sphere

Pattern the datum point at intervals on the curve

Pattern the sphere group as a reference pattern

Create a sweep for the center strand using the curve as trajectory using normal to trajectory option

[ThoRig · Accepted solution]

I was able to make the chain lanyard if the curve is on one plane, linear or curved, but not 3D.  I used the pattern on a curve feature rather than a reference.  When using more than one curve in 3D, I think will have to pattern it per curve, so if I have three curves, I will have three patterns.  I could not find a way to merge the curves, and I do not have the Reverse Engineering module.  Thanks.

[MartinHanak]

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@ThoRig wrote:

I was able to make the chain lanyard if the curve is on one plane, linear or curved, but not 3D.  I used the pattern on a curve feature rather than a reference.  When using more than one curve in 3D, I think will have to pattern it per curve, so if I have three curves, I will have three patterns.  I could not find a way to merge the curves, and I do not have the Reverse Engineering module.  Thanks.

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Hi,

I think you can create composite curve by merging your 3 curves.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLbnoGmXJU0 video.

[ThoRig]

I know how to do what's in the video, but the composite curve will not allow me to pattern points on the composite curve.  Nice video.  I was trying to find a way to merge curves.  Thanks.

[MartinHanak]

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@ThoRig wrote:

I know how to do what's in the video, but the composite curve will not allow me to pattern points on the composite curve.  Nice video.  I was trying to find a way to merge curves.  Thanks.

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Hi,

you can look into  3dcurve_2020-04-06.zip uploaded to https://community.ptc.com/t5/Part-Modeling/Merging-Sketched-Datum-Curves/m-p/658473#M33905 discussion.