Member postings for Gary Wooding

This is just a suggestion; set yourself a challenge. Join your local Remap panel and take on a case. Some cases are very challenging and seem to be impossible at first. Follow ***THIS*** link and click Volunteering to find the your local panel.

Here's what I did with Fusion...

S.O.D is quite right. All CAD systems require persistence and considerable time in order to become to be productive. It's so tempting to give up, but the rewards far outweigh the learning time.

Personally, I found Fusion 360 easier to learn than Alibre - it just seemed more logical, but it's not a good idea to change horses in midstream.

Edited to correct a spelling error.

Edited By Gary Wooding on 27/04/2023 10:45:30

Just one plus point for F360. It has a facility called T-Splines, which is, as far as I know, unique to F360. It allows you to create non-planar 3D surfaces which are easily converted into solid models. A T-Spline is rather like a linear spline, but applied to a surface rather than a line. This can be very useful for creating creating complex shapes such as these..

Hi David. Because you have also started a thread about 3D printing I assume you want to create 3D model;s for printing.

There are quite a few CAD systems from which to choose, but no matter what you finally decide on, be prepared for a very steep learning curve. I've tried the three big players: Solidworks, SolidEdge, and Fusion 360, and reckon the easiest one to learn is F360. Solidworks is very expensive and there is no free version, so you will probably skip it. The free version of SolidEdge is very powerful but can be rather difficult to learn. F360 is just as powerful but holds all your models in the cloud. Some people object to this, but it works fine for me. It's very easy to save your models to your own disks, but I don't really see the point. Being in the cloud means that you can access your models from any computer that has installed F360, anywhere in the world.

I haven't tried any other free system, but, because of the steep learning curves, it's not really practical to to switch.

Did I mention the steep learning curves? Whatever you choose, be prepared to spend months learning it. You can learn the basics in a few days, but that's just the beginning. Don't despair and give up.

Same for me. I too use the built-in add-blocker of Firefox and have never seen the flashing advertisement.

Why do you model in Alibre and export to F360 for CAM? Why not do the modelling in F360 too?

Thanks for all the interest - I was really only interested in a Coke can type container.

Yes, I made the riser block. Actually, I made about 20 altogether, and no, I have no plans for making any more.

I suppose that a can of fizzy drink in the hold of an aircraft could explode as a result of the reduced air pressure during the flight, but has it actually happened, or is it just a theoretical possibility?

I actually burst the star point on my two 3ph motors and added two 2nd hand Mitsubishi VFDs under the suds tray. I have no need to access them, but they are easily visible and out of the way. The major difficulty was the removal of the table motor - see my album. I made a little control box which I mounted on the end of the table - this provides finger-tip control of spindle and table speeds and directions. I would hate to be without it now.

Some years ago I purchased a hand-held 3D scanner, which was subsequently returned because it really wasn't up to the job. I subsequently used photogrammetry in the form of Autodesk's 123D, which worked well but unfortunately is no longer available. There are other such (free) systems available that I haven't tried. The most challenging thing about 3D scanning and photogrammetry is the process of editing and refining the resultant mesh file. Meshmixer works well, but is not very intuitive to use.

It's a spring winder - lets you make evenly spaced springs on the lathe.

Hopper: That article was the first one I ever submitted for publication .I'm pleased you're happy with it. A couple of people at my club made one, but I had no idea if anyone else had bothered.

I got some different sized knurl wheels but had problems keeping everything together, so designed and 3D printed a fitted case for it all.

Here are the components of the tool.

and an example of what it can do.

Cromwell Tools stock it. LINK

Cherry Hill, one of the very best, if not the best, model engineers, uses a Centec 2B.

I've fitted VFDs to the the spindle and power feed motors, and added a DRO to mine. It makes for a very nice machine. See my album. One rare thing on mine is that the spindles are ISO30.

I'd like to switch to Linux but several of the programs I use most frequently don't run on Linux.

You fill it by pumping the liquid through a thin pipe inserted from the bottom and threaded through the 'loop' part. Emptying is the same, but you have to suck instead.

Now I come to look at it, it does look like a Mobius strip. Here's a photo of the 3D equivalent - a Klein bottle.

Thank you. I tried X-calliper and cross-calliper. I didn't think of 'double ended'.

Mick: Unfortunately, the item I need to measure is on a curved surface.