Content tagged with "3-d-solid-modeling"
Results: 31
Article
April 1, 2010
Putting 3-D CAD on the grill - Part IV
As promised last month in Part III (Precision Matters, March 2010, p. 28), we're going to continue modeling the Shashlik Grill components, such as the wheels, axles, and retaining caps. Our goal is to maximize our efficiency in modeling the parts that are going into our assembly. (The... Read more...
Article
March 1, 2010
Putting 3-D CAD on the grill—Part III
Figure 1 The Lower Tray is linked parametrically by a Derived Sketch to the controlling sketch in the Upper Tray. As promised last month in Part II, we're going to explore a few techniques for modeling sheet metal parts within the context of a master assembly. What we want to end up... Read more...
Article
January 15, 2010
Putting 3-D CAD on the grill
Figure 1
Here's a rough sketch of the product concept.
Our goal for the next several columns will be to bring the product concept shown in Figure 1 into virtual reality. This will involve some 3-D CAD modeling. Perhaps the most important themes will be planning and documentation.... Read more...
Article
December 2, 2009
3-D CAD design communication skills
Figure 1 Design review meetings are critical to the success of any product development project. The 3-D CAD model is effectively the first prototype. Design review gives everyone involved a chance to catch errors, omissions, and gaps between vision and reality. When the meeting can be... Read more...
Article
November 3, 2009
Drafting useful drawings
Our project is to create the drawing shown in A production drawing is ready to be sent to a fabricator for manufacturing.">Figure 1 . For the purposes of publication I used an excessively large font for the bill of materials (BOM). Other than that, I believe this print would be presentable to... Read more...
Article
October 8, 2009
Bedeviled with the details
Figure 1 An extremely realistic model of a shoulder bolt—it is easy to visualize, hard to model. A recurring theme in 3-D CAD modeling is design intent. What is the reason for creating the model? Generally, the goal is some combination of visualization, virtual prototyping, and... Read more...
Article
September 23, 2009
Flat responsibility in sheet metal modeling
Figure 1a This sheet metal design looks OK in 3-D. (Editor's Note: The 3-D CAD software referred to in this column has several sheet metal-specific modeling tools. Other software packages have similar capabilities, but have a different user interface. It will be up to you to make the... Read more...
Article
September 23, 2009
Drawing the bead on weldments
Figure 1 Here is an exploded view of what we have in mind for a battery cage. ?Our project this month is to model a cage that will hold about 528 pounds (240 kg) of batteries. Our project manager has not settled on the specific battery spacing or on the structural members to use, so a... Read more...
Article
September 1, 2009
Die not in the mix for tool shop
Accurate quoting and delivery of tooling (such as the ones shown here) in just four to eight weeks is helping Nortool Precision Machining & Tool, Eklhart, Ind., to gain new customers in this difficult economic environment. Its new CAD/CAM software that supports 3-D for both design and NC has... Read more...
Article
July 1, 2009
Top-down modeling
Figure 1 How do you model the elliptical cut in the middle plate for the tubes? This month's column is in response to a question from Mike B.: "I have three plates parallel to each other 12 inches apart. Plate 1 is 9 in. by 9 in., while Plate 2 and Plate 3 are 18 in. by 18 in. Connecting... Read more...
Article
June 1, 2009
The most important output of 3-D CAD modeling
Figure 1 Click to view image larger This drawing with a BOM helps both purchasing and manufacturing. I recently attended a very interesting presentation by Chris Naujok, an engineer who is a SolidWorks® guru. One of the first questions he asked his audience of CAD jockeys was this:... Read more...
Article
May 1, 2009
Love of loft in 3-D CAD modeling
Like an extrude, revolve, or sweep, a loft is a tool for modeling a 3-D shape. A loft consists of two basic elements—two or more profiles and a set of rules for lofting between the profiles. Before getting too far into the details of lofts, I am going to offer up a couple of... Read more...
Article
April 1, 2009
Getting swept away in 3-D CAD modeling
Like an extrude or revolve, a sweep is a tool for modeling a 3-D shape. A sweep consists of three basic elements—a profile, a path, and a set of rules for "sweeping" the profile along the path. Before getting too far into the details of sweeps, I am going to offer up a couple of... Read more...
Article
March 1, 2009
Modeling in a 3-D CAD system
Figure 1 An example of a simple extrude based on a sketched circle is shown.
One of the core skills to have when operating a 3-D CAD system is the mastery of extrudes. With enough extrudes, almost any product can be modeled. However, other tools in the 3-D CAD... Read more...
Article
February 1, 2009
Dimensioning in a 3-D CAD system
Figure 1
Modeled dimensions make sense to a CAD jockey, but they may not make much sense to those in fabricating.
How important are dimensions to 3-D CAD modeling? Depends on your design objective, I guess.
The 3-D CAD software that I frequently use will allow me to model... Read more...
Article
January 1, 2009
Sketching in a 3-D CAD System
Figure 1
This adapter plate is the design goal.
There's nothing sketchy about the general skills involved in sketching. You need to be able to create sketch entities, establish sketch relationships, and add dimensional features.
When I'm drawing a sketch, I have a habit of... Read more...
Article
December 1, 2008
The real world of 3-D CAD assemblies
Figure 1a
This sheet metal bracket model is an example of an assembly of components.
We live in a 3-D world, so it makes sense that metal fabricators would work with 3-D CAD assemblies as a typical part of their work life. Fortunately, working with 3-D CAD assemblies also has many... Read more...
Article
November 11, 2008
3-D die design for a 3-D world
Who isn't feeling price pressures today? Who doesn't need to build dies faster than they used to?
Manufacturing has changed dramatically in many ways to meet price and time pressures. It's interesting to look at how far most companies have advanced in the past 20 years in terms of the... Read more...
Article
November 1, 2008
3-D CAD drawings in a 2-D world
Fabricating is all about meeting the customer's expectation. That is hard to do if you don't know what they want. One of the best tools for communicating those expectations is with a drawing.
That insight has been around for a while. After all, our ancient foremothers drew on the walls of... Read more...
Article
October 1, 2008
Thinking inside the box
Sometimes it matters how things fit together. It is always nice when holes for screws align properly and when connectors fit in their mounting holes. When modeling a design for an assembly in 3-D CAD, you might find one technique to be useful: top-down design. As a point of reference,... Read more...
Article
September 1, 2008
3-D CAD strengthens customer bond
For many of the job shops that I've visited, the 3-D CAD system investment was largely a marketing decision; the goal driving that decision was customer service. I recently asked a job shop owner what prompted the purchase of a 3-D CAD system, and part of the answer reaffirmed the... Read more...
Article
August 1, 2008
One easy piece to model
I've met more than a handful of people who have access to a 3-D CAD system, but are restricted in what they can do with the software. In many cases, the 3-D CAD system is used merely as a data exchange tool; the main mission is to generate a CNC program for manufacturing. As often is the... Read more...
Article
July 1, 2008
Getting a handle on 3-D CAD modeling
Figure 1a A simple five-line sketch can create a full sheet metal part. CAD software of the 3-D variety can be a lot of fun to use. Perhaps it's because the software does a lot of work quickly. Figure 1a shows an example of the power of 3-D CAD software. To create a sheet metal... Read more...
Article
June 16, 2008
Unfolding truth about flats
Gerald Davis is a job shop consultant and chair Three-dimensional CAD software provides great power to generate flat layouts of sheet metal parts with just a click of a button. But as Uncle Ben told a young Peter Parker in Stan Lee's "Spider-Man" saga, "With great power there must also come... Read more...
Article
June 1, 2008
Article
May 1, 2008
Machined-part modeling in 3-D CAD
Almost anything can be built. Clever machine tool manufacturers offer solutions for even the most challenging manufacturing problems. Sometimes, however, manufacturing resources are limited. What sorts of things should CAD designers consider when modeling parts that are intended to be easy... Read more...
Article
June 12, 2007
Developing forming dies Part III
Editor's Note: This is first installment of a three-part series that discusses die development for producing nonuniform, contoured parts by breaking the process down into eight steps. Part I covers the part material, its form, and its function. Part II discusses length-of-line analysis and tip... Read more...
Article
June 12, 2007
Article
May 8, 2007
Developing forming dies Part II
Editor's Note: This is first installment of a three-part series that discusses die development for producing nonuniform, contoured parts by breaking the process down into eight steps. Part I covers the part material, its form, and its function. Part II discusses length-of-line analysis and tip... Read more...
Article
December 12, 2006
Can your manufacturing software do this?
Software has changed the nature of fabricating. Most fabricating shops hammer out the manufacturing details of a job on their own computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software packages immediately upon receipt of the customer's engineering drawings. Some of the more aggressive fabricating shops... Read more...
Article
May 9, 2006
Metal fabricating in a new millennium
"What I wanted to do in Millennium Park is make something that would engage the Chicago skyline ... so that one will see the clouds kind of floating in, with those very tall buildings reflected in the work. And then, since it is in the form of a gate, the participant, the viewer, will... Read more...
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