spring modelling

[iceblink1]

Hello all,

My Pro/E knowledge is a bit rusty, I stopped using it regularly in
v2001. Now i'm trying to model a spring in WF4. And I need help.

What i did was model a datum curve, from equation, using cylindrical
coordinates. Nice and easy.
Then I modelled the ends of the spring as sketched curves. They ended
up showing as "sketch" in the model tree, which I think is weird, but
okay, feature info says they are curves, so it should be good.

Then I made a composite curve, approximate. My goodness, what a
counter-intuitive bunch of steps you have to follow to get that done. I
would never have found how to do that without Googling. But okay, on
with the work.

Finally I wanted to make a Sweep over the curve. Didn't work. Invalid
trajectory.

Okay maybe i did something wrong, but let's see if I can at least get
the spirally bit swept? It turns out, I can't. Pro/E won't create a
sweep on the datum curve from equation (cylindrical coordinates). And I
have no clue why?

Someone please tell me that it is still possible to model a simple
spiral spring with both ends having some smaller-radius going into
straight ends, within 10 minutes? It used to be a piece of cake. Now it
seems to be very complex. Is it just me, or is it the software?


Best regards,

Patrick Asselman


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[bokm9606]

there are vairable sections sweeps which are dashboard features. This should be able to sweep your composite curve fairly easily.

There is the old school sweeps found in Insert>sweep>solid or surface or cut

The old sweeps sometimes do not like complicated trajectories.

There is a helical sweep function you can use but it generates surfaces or solid...not curves

[DonSenchuk]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but...

Insert > Helical Sweep > Protrusion

To get your smaller radius going into straight ends may require extra features, but springs are a piece of cake.

[bokm9606]

but to get decent transitions into end features on helical parts, i find that the swept curve approach creates much nicer part models that the built in "helix" features.

All depends on what you need the model to do/represent.

[rrich]

Here is an example using helical sweep with variable pitch.

Alternately you could use variable section sweep on your composite curve and it should work.

Regards,
Ron Rich

[iceblink1]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions and help!

My goal was not so much to get a spring model, but for me to be able to
model one. I guess I should have made that more clear.

The winning suggestion is to use a variable section sweep on the
composite curve.

And I have to say: as difficult as it was to create the composite
curve, it was mighty easy to create the variable section sweep.
(Back in my modelling days, it used to be the other way around, that is
probably why i didn't try the VSS).

It's still puzzling that the normal Sweep didn't do its job without a
more descriptive error on what was wrong with the curve (there were no
self-intersections, nor too small radii, everything was tangent, nothing
difficult about it), but I guess I'll have to live with that mystery.

The reason to not use the helical sweep is that I wanted full control
over the trajectory (both for the helical part and both ends).

Thanks again,

Patrick Asselman