Member postings for blowlamp

There's some interesting and maybe pertinant stuff here in an article about Philip Woodward's W5 clock.

Martin.

Dave.

I just came across my copy of Philip Woodward's book, My Own Right Time.

I see that he managed to achieve an accuracy of 1 second in 100 days without enclosing the pendulum in a vacuum chamber. However, what he did find to be important was to blend or radius the edges of the cylindrical bob to reduce air turbulence.

Martin.

Lee.

Glad you haven't given up.

Sorry if you are already aware of this, but you can load images of the head for tracing purposes etc, if that helps.

Also, If you get stuck whilst using a particular tool the ?Help icon takes you straight to the information about the tool in use. I find it sometimes gives me a useful nudge.

Martin.

A video with a few ways to get things properly positioned in MoI, for things like stud or bolt holes and also attaching a boss to the side of a cylinder.

Martin.

Dave.

Remember that these are just renders of the solid models produced by MoI.

I'm not trying to claim MoI is anything more than it actually is. You wouldn't design the Space Shuttle in it, just as you wouldn't try to do that in Fusion 360 or Alibre products.

What I am able to do in MoI is produce both solid model files, STL and DXF files, along with dimensioned drawings for my own use. I can send its output to my CAM systems and create excellent gcode for my CNC lathe & milling machine.

"The last MOI example represents a record turntable. It's a broadly correct and scaled external view that could be 3D printed as a model, used to illustrate a forum post, or published in a glossy magazine advert.

Great, so far as it goes, but tell me if I'm wrong: the turntable isn't an engineering model. It's an outer view of a turntable with nothing inside."

You are almost certainly wrong:

As I didn't model the turntable myself I can't tell you how well it has been constructed, but I can tell you that if I had modeled it, then each part of it would be to correct size and ready for transfer to Solid Edge, Fusion 360, Alibre or any CAM system.

The Cars you have posted do give a good indication of some of the nice shapes you can make in MoI that would be manufacturable directly from the MoI file output.

The models I make in MoI can be imported into your favourite mechanical CAD app and edited there - they are just the same NURBS models.

Martin.

Dave.

When you said this:

"MOI is good at curves, making it an excellent choice for 3d-print modelling. Also photo-realistic images, and designing decorative objects. It also appears to be easy to learn, and can do flat stuff as well. All considerable advantages if that's what's needed, but not for me. My needs are more 'mechanical engineering' , and although Solid Edge has surface tools that can do similar to MOI, I've never used them."

I must point out that MoI doesn't do photo-realistic images at all and it's not advertised anywhere that I know of for designing decorative objects, although you could do that if you wanted to.

MoI is perfectly capable of creating an accurate model of anything from a vase to a jet engine, but not in a parametric way. This is why it can export in SAT, IGES and STEP formats, etc. The v5 beta that I'm running also uses the ACIS modeling kernel as well as Solids++.

I'm fairly sure that the need to use surfaces will creep up on you as your designs change.

Martin.

Edited By blowlamp on 19/05/2023 13:57:28

Jason.

I agree, just a different way of getting the job done as I think MoI is classed as a Direct Modeler whereas Alibre & Fusion 360 are Parametric.

You might be able to do the same thing in your version of Alibre as I did in my last video by extruding two solids that intersect and then doing a boolean intersect.

Martin.

John.

There's no doubt that Fusion 360 is a very capable package, that I have used, but the fact that I could never 'own' it always sat uneasy with me. I really do not like the idea of software as a subscription service, so I prefer to buy elsewhere.

Martin.

Lee.

You can easily do an extruded through cut with curves, just by selecting the solid and a suitably placed curve and then doing a Boolean Difference.

The cylinder heads in your picture look simple enough, so I did a quick video of one way this could be done in MoI. A few more booleans and you could relieve the fins for the plug hole & stud holes. Dead easy.

Martin.

You are right Ady, MoI doesn't have those particular tools, but it does have a well developed range of modelling tools that aren't necessarily available in similarly priced CAD packages.

Martin.

Lee.

I would be interested to see how you get on with MoI, so it's a from me if you take us through your learning curve.

Martin.

Hi Lee.

Michael Gibson is the author of MoI and offers support that is second to none. He is also the author of Rhino Cad, so is a real expert in his field.

Download it and have some fun.

Martin.

I think the Scene Browser would be the equivalent in MoI. This Video should give you an idea of how objects can be filtered & organised for further work.

Martin.

Have a shufty over here: http://moi3d.com/4.0/docs/moi_command_reference.htm

Nice, concise eplanation of each tool in MoI v4. I'm currently running a beta of v5, which is going to be a worthwhile update.

I'm happy to demo any features you might be interested in.

Martin.

Edited By blowlamp on 17/05/2023 18:56:18

Lee.

MoI never needs to be online for anything except for downloading updates. It can also be installed onto a USB stick and used on any other computer as well.

File formats are:

Import: 3DM (native format), IGES, STEP, SAT, DXF, SVG, PDF and Illustrator. It will also import OBJ and FBX files, which are converted to sufaces/solids on import.

Export: 3DM, IGES, STEP, SAT, DXF, SVG, PDF, Illustrator, FBX, LWO, STL, OBJ, SKP and 3DS.

Martin.

Not a specific tool for text, but you can use the Flow tool in MoI to distribute text, or anything else, along a curve or fit it to a surface.

Martin.

Shame about that Lee. It's never easy finding the thing that suits you best.

You have got me wondering what you'll be doing in Solidedge with regard to text design though - something like nameplates

Martin.

Boolean 'Merge' is ideal for for this job. From only a model of the piston it's straightforward to create the core, core mould, piston mould and retain the model of the piston.

Martin.

I think you might be getting into constructing surfaces to make the rest of the mould, which then need to be made into solids, and that can be quite a bit more tricky to do.

Martin.

Similar technique done in MoI.

Martin.