coil cords in a spiral

Well, it is a question. I have hard time to make 3d of coil cords twisted in a spiral. If anyone does have any tips or tricks, how to draw it?

I don't know of a way in AutoCAD, even in Inventor it would be a lot of work. The easiest solution would be to do a coil with a cosmetic texture - but that would only look good from a distance. If the rest of your assembly is relatively large compared to the coil then a cosmetic texture should be good enough.

Ha ha!

Only the old guys can remember this old thread: http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?t=353

It was created in those dark ages, using AutoCAD 2000 -without the modern commands SWEEP and LOFT you have today!

the first part can be done with the helix command with the hight of 0, but i don't know how to do a helix around a helix, or around other paths.

anyone willing to share some list procedures?

wow, a helix to be wrapped with a helix, thats heavy ^_^

id love to know how it can be done also

Yeah, I'm interested, too. I played with it for awhile. I tried doing a one turn helix and then copying that (MEASURE) around another helix. I think the theory works, but I never could get the end of the first helix to align perfectly with the beginning of the next. But if you could, could you then join them into one long helix that turns slightly at every turn? Even still, it will have discrete turning points, not one smooth helixing helix.

That's as far as I've gotten, though. I sure hope someone else can come up with a better solution. I'd love to know.

I made it, without LISP, by handycraft's way:shock:.

1. helix with 0 height

2. needed amount of rays (long black)

3. tracking the spiral by short straight polylines( go through intersections a spiral with rays (red line))

4. offset red polyline on needed gap between cord (second red line)

5. making typical coil with 1 full turn at the begining of the spyral (orange lines)

6. array that coil, then draw another set of rays through midddle point of the coil(green short rays)

7. move every coil along green rays matching middle point of coil and intersection of the green ray with red polyline.

8. for second coil of the cord, repeat 6. and 7.

9. the funniest part: stretching coils till their ends touch long black rays.

10. using MOVE command, connect each coils, then explode them, then JOIN these spolilines in one.

11. extrude a circle by the path of coiled spline.

and you get it.

it takes about 1.5 hour.