Mirror part issues

[drawlins]

I am attempting to create a mirror of the part shown in the attached image and it keeps aborting.  I have tried changing the accuracy to different settings with no success.  Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[KenFarley]

You don't really tell us what you are trying to do, in terms of program operations, or what version of Creo you're working with, but my usual method of making a mirror of a part is:

(1) Define a plane that is going to be used for the mirror.

(2) Mirror the entire part through that plane. Don't even think about mirroring features, it's a nightmare and if you want to add a feature later that you want to see in both parts, like a fillet or some such, you have to delete the entire mirror, etc.

(3) Do an extrusion to cut away the original half that you mirrored.

(4) Add a family table to the part to allow you to get either the "right" or "left" side part.

If your original non-mirrored part is okay, this should work. You might have troubles if you've got chamfers or rounds on the surface you want to mirror through, so a datum plane that is offset by a bit might be needed.

[drawlins]

Thank you for your quick response Kenneth.  I am using Creo 3.0 and attempting to create a mirror image of the shown right handed grip to create a left handed grip.  I will try using your method.  When I tried it I just tried to do a "save as" and selected mirror image.

[rrich-2]

My guess it is your texture pattern.  Suppress that stuff on the grip then try the mirror from the save as menu.  It looks like something is going wrong where your tip of your pinky finger would be as it wrapped around.  Your pattern does not look complete at that point.

You may need to mirror it then re apply texture to your mirrored part.

Ron

[StephenW]

The way I have done it in the past is to make an empty assy (completely empty, no datums, no start assy). I add the part.

I then select component create and check the mirror sub-type, give the new part a name and ok.

Use a part datum for the mirror plane. You can choose geometry only (shows no features) or the one with features (but the last feature is a mirror merge).

[drawlins]

Thank you to both Ron and Stephen.  Ron's answer was correct in that the texture pattern was what was creating the problem.  It mirrored successfully when I suppressed it.  The problem now is that the part is an inherited part and the texturing is above my current capabilities of recreating. 

Stephens solution seemed to work great in that the part created was successful.  I suppressed the original part and the results look like just what I need.  But now I need to save as a .stl file and it won't successfully save.  The part won't triangulate.  I'm needing an stl to submit to a 3D printer.

I'm not sure who to mark as the correct answer in that both were correct.  It may just be over my head at this point.

[rrich-2 · Accepted solution]

Can you STL the original normal model?   if so then just mirror the part in the 3D printer software. 

[drawlins]

That will work Ron.  I had to suppress a couple of rounds at the top of the part to get it to work but then it successfully saved as stl.  And yes, I'm able to print a mirror image on the printer.  Thanks to all for your help.