Eliminating twisting from sweep around a helix

I am having trouble getting the rules to work in driveworks.

Specifically I cant seem to use ROUNDUP or ROUNDDOWN. There also doesnt appear to be a % function to get a remainder so I cant figure out a way of rounding a number up or down. I need to be able to do this to get my sketch pattern work and give me the alternating wires.

Right now my equation for the top number of layers is

=ROUNDUP(NumberofLayers/2)

and the bottowm number of layers is

=ROUNDDown(NumberofLayers/2)

Driveworks tells me that the result for both of these is [FUNCTION] and when I try to run it it gives me the error as shown in the attached picture.

Lastly I still havent figured out a way to get driveworks to fill in the surfaces automatically.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Sorry I didnt have any time to give this a go over the weekend. I did make a video about equations and linked dimensions that might be of some use.

http://tinyurl.com/62sechb

Its the 3rd video in the list at the moment. As far as driving your equations and skipping certain pattern elements. The skipping elements is a manual selection thing so im not sure off the top of my head how to automate this.When you are creating a sketch pattern there is an Angle you can enter which i believe will get around your need to skip any instances. Its at the bottom of the direction 2 box and this angle is in relation to your Y axis(or linear reference if you have one selected). If you leave 180degrees in the direction 1 box and alter the Direction 2 angle to 45 this should give you the same result as you have above.

I managed to get driveworks working somewhat. I am now having a problem that I have tried to fix in every way I know. Before running driveworks my sketch13 is fully defined, and the dimension for the distance between the top row of circles corresponds to the linear pattern they follow, so if I change this dimention the distance in between each circle changes also, exactly like I expect (as seen in the first attached picture). However, if I run driveworks to create a model with a different diameter, although it doesnt give me any errors, the sketch stops being fully defined and the top row of circles do not change their spacing. The dimension all of a sudden loses its relations to the other circles and I cant do anything about it. I have tried rebuilding the driveworks database several times, and I have made sure that "add spacing dimension" and "display instance count" were always checked off, but nothing seems to work. The bottom row of circles (in the same sketch but they are a different pattern) have always worked perfectly and were remodled easily with driveworks. If any one has any ideas on what is going on it would be much appreciated.

I am still stuck on this problem and hopeful that someone has an answer. I have tried using design tables, equations and driveworks (each having its relations build from scratch and run in seperate part files) and none of them help make this work.

Also, only driveoworks manages to change the 3D sketch (helix) that acts as the guide for the sweep. Using equations or a design table wont let me make the number of rotations larger then what the default value is in the orginal model. I can make the number smaller and all is fine, but if I try to go bigger, using a design table, the 3D sketch just goes all random and usuable (random connections/broken lines), if I use equations, the 3D sketch looks fine but the sweep feature doesnt want to use it. Also, for both these cases I triple checked the math/relations and made sure the geometety makes sense, and it looks fine. Any help with this would also be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Sorry spopa i just havent had any time for this the past few days. I will give it a shot soon. Is your path circular? I havent downloaded the file but the screen shots don't appear to be that simple.

Don’t worry about it, I’m really grateful for everyone’s help so far, I’ve learned so much about automating design, too bad my particular application just doesn’t want to cooperate. And no, the path is a slot shape. In regards to the first problem with the pattern, you're tutorial was helpful and it pointed out some things I forgot to include in my sketch, but it didnt help solve the problem that doesnt let me modify the spacing.

Spopa,

Sorry about the delay, I've been traveling so I haven't had time to review the part. I posted the part in the SW forums, the solid sweep feature seems to have a bug. I plan on submitting this issue to SW when I return. A member of that forum suggested a work around, I have a few in mind as well. I experienced the same problem with the sketch pattern, it seems to lose its relation when making large dimension changes. This may also be a bug. If so, the solution may be to created each layer individually. You would have to create the maximum number of layers then suppress/unsuppress the ones you want. Do you still need a hand?

Hi Bhamze,

I have rebuilt the model from scratch and created a design table for it. So far it seems that the pattern instability is not the only probable bug. After some testing it here is what I determined about its functionality:

NOTE: bottom/top layer refers to the bottom/top layer of circular cross sections in sketch 13 (sketch used to sweep the individual wires)

Wire diameter can be changed in small amounts, large amount wreck the relations between the top layer. After some more testing this also failed, changing the wire diameter (with no other changes) by any amount wrecks the relations between the bottom layer now!

Changing slot width by any amount wrecks relations between the bottom layer

Changing slot length and diameter causes problems (see bug.png)

Changing number of turns causes a bug in the 3D path. (see 3dpath.png) (NOTE: The 3D path is created by "intersection curve" between the slot surface and the sweeped helix)

Changing slot length has no detrimental effect

Changing number of layers top and/or bottom has no detrimental effect

Changing slot length and number of layers has no detrimental effects

I would appreciate if someone can take a quick look at the file, posted here:

http://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=05233f90-a93e-419f-b527-4619927aa18d&file=Solenoid_new.SLDPRT

and let me know if I used design tables correctly andbuilt my model using acceptable sw methods/standard practices.

Bhamze, if you could tell me your other ideas to work around the bug that would be great. I am not sure how many layers I may need in the final model but it may be 50+ which would be pretty tedious to make and the whole point of this is that the process would be automated. In anycase, if that ends up being the only thing that works then I guess Ill just have to go with it. What is more concerning now is the fact the 3D curve seems to have bugs as this is a fundamental part of my model which at this point have no idea how to work around.