chrisf
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| posted on 19/1/06 at 06:36 PM |
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Chassis Design
When modeling a tube chassis in 3D (i.e., SolidWorks or SolidEdge), is it common to make each tube its own part or is the chassis done up as a single
part?
If each tube is a separate part, what mate is used for round tube to hold it in place?
--Thanks, Chris
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flak monkey
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| posted on 19/1/06 at 06:39 PM |
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I made mine as all seperate tubes.
If you are using solidworks 2005 onward you can just use the weldments feature. Then you only need to draw the central axis of each tube, SW will do
the rest. You can even create drawings of each tube seperately i think!
David
Sera
http://www.motosera.com
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bigandy
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| posted on 19/1/06 at 07:18 PM |
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You can do it either way, a single part, or multiple parts constrained in an assembly.
Personally, I would approach it using the Weldments feature (it does exist in SW2004, although it is a bit poor. later versions of SW implement this
a lot better).
If using the assembly approach, where each tube is a seperate part, then for round tube, then there are several ways to constrain round tubes inplace.
(as always, there are many ways to skin a cat!)
The easiest way is probably to create reference planes, or use the front/top/right planes in the assembly mate. It should also possible to mate round
tubes by using Temporary Axis (in the view menu, select view temporary axes) and these correspond to the central axis of a cylindrical feature.
You could also use tangent or distant mates with the circular edges.
As I said, the best way to model tubular parts, is to use the weldments feature. It makes itso much more simple to specify what type of joints you
want, apply gussets, model weld beads, generate cut lists etc etc....
Hope that helps a bit!
Cheers
Andy
Dammit! Too many decisions....
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