Alibre - A First Attempt

Nigel, I don't know much about Atom, but instead of sketching a taper, couldn't you apply a chamfer to the top of the column? This is where my ignorance of Atom could fail me. Most of the cad software I have used allow for the creation of an unequal sized chamfer. The top of the chamfer could be 3mm, and the side 25mm. (These measurements are only an example). This will give an unequal chamfer, as near to a taper as makes no difference. When you get over this particular hurdle then you will get stuck into finding out a bit more about the software.

Now a question about projecting to sketch. Did you start a new sketch on one of the two planes that would allow for the creation of the chamfer, and then use project to sketch, or did you select to top "circle" of the column before starting a new sketch? Again, ignorance my have me on the wrong path here.

Totally don't give up. Just keep plugging away and once you start to "get it" all your CAD fantasies will come true, the final result is worth the effort

For the money Alibre Atom does it all for a hobby engineer, all the basics, plus 3D construction/drawing movement to test tolerances etc

I'm 4 months in and I have:

Built a replica warco magnum bender

Turned my 2 ton arbour press into a 5-10 ton press via the Dake system

Currently doing sheet metal die design and experimenting

Instead of trying to figure stuff out in the garage you log-on and build it in Alibre, it does 95% of the job in virtual reality and then you hit the ground running when you step into the workshop, cut this, turn this, drill that, you've already done it and figured out the machining/construction route/pitfalls and you can see most of the sneaky real world problems before they actually happen

I'm pretty snookered after 4 hours in the workshop but I can do 12 hours of CAD, current stuff, project stuff, reviewing stuff. Virtual reality model engineering is fun and very gratifying.

Lee the idea of the exersise is to get beginners using all the functions, canfem was use on the previous base part and now the next part is being used to show how project to sketch and a revolved cut works. Yes a chamfer of length & angle woyld do a similar job.

How are you selecting the plane? In the example you should be clicking where it is listed down the tree at the left of the page. This will only bring up a view that is square on to that plane not at an angle. You may be clicking the boxes top left which are not mow to select planes as they can bring the part up at angles eg isometric view. Part size will change to fit the working area depending on it's size so looking at the end you will get the small 6mm dia enlarged but if you look at the side the 200mm length will be fitted the screen.

Hopefully DavidJ can help when he has his machine set up.

Nigel - saving files that have not worked out as expected is helpful. From experience I can tell you that it's often (not always) clear what the user has done incorrectly from examining the file.

If nothing else you can go back to the file later and re-examine your own work, or just take up where you left off. There's no rule saying you have to finish an exercise in one session. If a feature doesn't work out you can either suppress it or delete it from the design, then try again.

Jason -

You are right in that trying alternative ways to obtain a result is not what I want to do. It might work but would defeat the object of the (literally) exercise.

Your suggestion on using a "smart" TV, some way back amused me. I have no TV, "smart" (whatever one of those is) or scruffy! If you think I find CAD hard don't ask me to turn on the telly and select a given channel, with one of those boxes of mysterious buttons. I haven't a clue how to use those, and once, staying in a bed-&-breakfast house, did try only to go an unwittingly de-tune everyone's - I had had no idea that in "my" room was the master set for the house!

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Anyway I went mouse-hunting today and have now installed a nice new 2-button and wheel device of the sort Alibre expects. Purrr.....

...until I tried that exercise yet again.

Disaster.

The mouse is so sensitive and rapid that in my wobbly hand I cannot rotate the image properly, just make it leap wildly around at great speed, to weird angles as the distorted grid shows. At one point the image shrank to a useless tangle in the middle of the screen, and I had to start all over again. (Is there a definite Close File function in Alibre?) So replacing the pointer has not made Alibre any easier to drive; but I did know buying it would be a gamble.

I can't control it properly and because the object in this tutorial is just a long, slender cylinder I have no idea which end is which. Also, sometimes it takes a few goes for a tool to register, so I think I am locking the programme when that happens.

Eventually the drawing settled into something looking vaguely right, don't ask me how, and I could make that Project triangle. I set the triangle on the column edge where that crosses a vertical plane as expected, but I could not be sure it was the right intercept of four on the end, nor if on the right end.

Anyway it was there, but not as in the Good Book. It was much smaller and upside down, pointing upwards and outwards like a horn. I had no idea if the column is the right way up either. When I try to do as it says, the bar turns end-on in milliseconds, as well as greatly enlarging it, so it can go either way and still look the same - most likely the wrong way.

(An optical trick I have used sometimes on symmetrical lumps in TurboCAD is a little, temporary sphere without "Adding" it, on the datum corner, to show when the rotated object is back "home". In Alibre, it would become part of the object, but a comparable move would be a feature to be added later anyway, such as a chamfer at one end of the column.)

Hopeless....

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Does anyone know how to re-assemble A0 drawing-boards...?

***Nigel***

This video will show you how to slow your mouse down... I made it especially for you!!

Martin.

Surely any 3D program has a 'home' icon, that will rotate the view to whatever you designate whether that's the front or an angled view? Used together with a 'fit to screen' function, that would prevent such problems. It would be one of the things a real, on-site tutor would mention fairly early on....

I bought Alibre Atom 3D this afternoon. Reeived the licence number about 90 mins ago so Alibre is downloaded and running.

During the Install it tried to install Visual C++ but failed part way through. The install successfully continued anyway. I then downloaded Visual C++ from Microsoft and then 'repaired' Alibre hoping it would now 'see' C++.

Have got half way through Jason's Nuts video...will continue tomorrow. I notice sometimes the mouse cursor doesn't want to grab the line/feature.....it's a decent Logitech M510 wireless mouse. Anyway, getting late...will investigate further tomorrow. But so far the Alibre Interface seem reasonably intuitive.

Ches.

Edited By Ches Green UK on 28/04/2023 23:14:31

Nice one Ches. Prepare to become addicted once those basics are mastered.

Don't get hung up on micro details like threads, create a master metric and a master imperial sheet

make basic stuff from old ME plans in imperial and metric, drop the "parts" together into "assembly" put them together and watch your virtual reality creations move

Awesome

That is the software "catching up", some of it is instant, some of it needs a fraction of a second or so to get going and you need to hold your mouse click a teeny bit longer than usual

There are a lot of numbers whirring away behind the scenes to make the on-screen magic happen

Lee there are several "home" options along the top left of the screen, If you watch my videos in this thread you will see I tend to favour the default isometric one Can be set to any of about 8 views much like clicking the corners of the navigation cube in F360) and will resize to fit the screen.

Ches, ask if you have any queries, you may also want to try the scribing block column but may be harder to follow without the article unless you can get to the digital archive.

On the odd occasion it does not immediately seem to pick up an axis so a bit of moving the pointer to another part of the axis seems to do it

Nigel well I think the TV comment does sum up what I have said a few times in the past and can explain things like mouse problems, not being able to open links that others have and so on. Though I'm more inclined to think the old mouse was slow rather than the new one being fast as I don't alter the speed when I fit a new one, the default seems fine.

As for which way up your column is you should be able to keep track of it as the red outlined sketch of the 6mm circle will be the top and the planes and axis will intersect at that end.

I will say here that I would have selected a different plane to start with which was discussed way back when the series first started and would probably go a long way to solving your disorientation. As done per the article when you click the isometric the column is laying down, I'd have started on the ZX plane then it will show as upright.

As for your triangle ending up the wrong way sounds like you are not using the project to sketch and then the coincident constraint but just dragging it about.

Thank you

Martin - Have found the settings (it's a slightly confusing route through it) and slowed the mouse down. Will just have to see if it helps! I use the cursor arrows to move the drawing horizontally and vertically, though they are slow. As Ady says, it involves the computer doing a huge amount of re-calculating!

I like your twisted clevis - must be a market for them!

Nick. - Alibre has that set of cube symbols whose home aspect seems to be the one with the red dot on the lower right front corner, but I think it refers to how the drawing is started. If so, if that's already on the wrong plane it will still be on the wrong plane whenever you return it to the home aspect.

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I've mentioned my wobbly hands. They've always been like that but are worse now. One function it affects is the basic page-scrolling by the slider at the side of the display. Microsoft has reduced its width to about 2mm, needing hands as steady as a neuro-surgeon's to use it with the mouse.

In Atom3D,pressing the 'Home' key on the keyboard will fit the current work to screen in the current orientation.

As Jason has already pointed out, the 'standard view' icons at very top of screen give a quick way to re-orient the model and zoom to fit at the same time. There are pre-defined shortcut keys for these views (e.g. 'Front' = Ctrl + 1 , the digit must be from top row of main keyboard - NOT the Numpad to right of standard keyboard).

Nigel - as in all Windows software, you close a file in Atom3D by clicking the cross icon at extreme top right of the Window that the software is open in.

Nigel now that you have your new mouse you won't need to use the slider at the side of ANY screen, with the curser anywhere on screen just gently roll the mouse wheel up and down.

Red (orange actually) dot in that corner is default, you should be able to get a drop down for that one and pick any corner but suggest you don't for now.

Jason -

Your post appeared after I'd replied to Martin & Nick or I'd have put this in the same reply.

No I was not just dragging the triangle about!

I was using the right constraint tool and nodes but it flipped up-side down as it connected to the cylinder. I tried it two or three times and it acted like that each time.

I note your tip to start the drawing on the ZX plane though.

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David -

I'd not noticed the little cross for the file itself, rather than the whole programme. Will look again.

Nigel,

Using the cursor keys to Pan the workspace in Atom3D is slow - that isn't an issue with re-calculation, it's just slow.

You can rotate the workspace by holding down Shift whilst using cursor keys - that works at a more usable speed.

If size of controls for selection is an issue, there are various options in Alibre to re-size icons etc. for clarity. If after customising, there are still items that are too small for easy selection, please feed back to Alibre.

Your computer hardware is not fantastic, but should cope OK with Atom3D as long as models don't get too complex. There are things that can be done in settings to improve responsiveness if you suffer display lag.

Ches,

Have you set the 'Snap Threshold'? - if it is zero or very small, you do then have to be very precise with the mouse, especially if working with a high DPI monitor. I find 3mm a good starting value (there are separate settings for 2D sketch in 3D workspaces, and for Sketch in the 2D Drawing workspace).

It is for the current WORKSPACE, it closes the workspace, but leaves the program (the Home Window) open. There is a separate cross on the Home Window to entirely close the program.

Ady, Jason,

Thank you for the comments.

I don't want to hijack Nigel's thread too much, but may ask the occasional question

Ches

Yes, that's how you use it!

Your initial planning ensures that you model the first part so it makes sense to you compared to Alibre's origin and planes. So your column sketch would be rotated around the vertical axis, or the base extruded from the horizontal plane which is how I would start and build everything from there. Then you can click on the front(or whatever) view, and check your new part/sketch aligns the way you expect before committing to it and wasting time and frustration.