Chris_Hebden Posted January 8, 2011 Author Share Posted January 8, 2011 Hay Jack, great drawings! Are you able to taper your tubes to a different radius? Can you give a slightly better explanation for doing it your way as i cant follow the vid very well? Well, i have been very briefly been playing with "sweep" command and this is my very first, very crude inlet manifold design! Sweep is the easiest way for an amateur like me to do this but i have to play with my angles and not rust into making it 3D! I did the 3D a bit quick and that screwed some of my view ports up! Thank you ever so much for your help! 1.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 Do you have another view, maybe an isometric? The PDF above doesn't really provide a good idea of what you have created. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_O'neill Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 Hay Jack, great drawings! Are you able to taper your tubes to a different radius? Can you give a slightly better explanation for doing it your way as i cant follow the vid very well? Well, i have been very briefly been playing with "sweep" command and this is my very first, very crude inlet manifold design! Sweep is the easiest way for an amateur like me to do this but i have to play with my angles and not rust into making it 3D! I did the 3D a bit quick and that screwed some of my view ports up! Thank you ever so much for your help! Chris, I'll be happy to do up something to explain it better. It will be sometime tomorrow before I get it to you though. Is this something like what you were trying to do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Hebden Posted January 9, 2011 Author Share Posted January 9, 2011 Chris' date=' I'll be happy to do up something to explain it better. It will be sometime tomorrow before I get it to you though. Is this something like what you were trying to do?[/quote'] Yea something like that, thanks! That would be really appreciated, there is no rush what so ever as this is just a learning process at the minute! Do you have another view, maybe an isometric? The PDF above doesn't really provide a good idea of what you have created. Is the attached pdf any better mate? As said, this is a very crude first attempt! edie: added CAD file of cylinder head and manifold, head i drew along time ago!! Inlet Manifold.pdf Inlet Manifold take 1 yr 2000.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_O'neill Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 (edited) Yea something like that, thanks! That would be really appreciated, there is no rush what so ever as this is just a learning process at the minute! Is the attached pdf any better mate? As said, this is a very crude first attempt! edie: added CAD file of cylinder head and manifold, head i drew along time ago!! That's interesting work. I didn't realize that the bent legs coming off the body of the manifold were square. I spent 1985-2001 working for a place that fabricates copper tubing for the refrigeration industry. Those folks can come up with some strange stuff to do with copper tubing. We avoided square tubing as much as possible because at least in copper, it's so hard to bend it and not have wrinkles in the inside of the bend. Wasn't so much an aesthetic issue, rather more that irregularities on the inside of the tube would cause turbulence in the refrigerant. If you don't mind my asking, what material are you working with? Edited January 9, 2011 by Jack_O'neill fingers out ran my brain Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kencaz Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 That's interesting work. I didn't realize that the bent legs coming off the body of the manifold were square. I spent 1985-91 working for a place that fabricates copper tubing for the refrigeration industry. Those folks can come up with some strange stuff to do with copper tubing. We avoided square tubing as much as possible because at least in copper' date=' it's so hard to bend it and not have wrinkles in the inside of the bend. Wasn't so much an aesthetic issue, rather more that irregularities on the inside of the tube would cause turbulence in the refrigerant. If you don't mind my asking, what material are you working with?[/quote'] Yeah... Bending that square tubing would not be a fun task, and seems kind-of unusual to me as well. For the OP, I would suggest extruding your pipe as a solid and shelling it first. Then draw your header and do some subtracting to make the holes, then extrude and subtract to hollow out the header and at the same time cut the tubing protruding into the header. Then Add your caps... This would make the process a little faster I would think. KC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Hebden Posted January 9, 2011 Author Share Posted January 9, 2011 That's interesting work. I didn't realize that the bent legs coming off the body of the manifold were square. I spent 1985-91 working for a place that fabricates copper tubing for the refrigeration industry. Those folks can come up with some strange stuff to do with copper tubing. We avoided square tubing as much as possible because at least in copper' date=' it's so hard to bend it and not have wrinkles in the inside of the bend. Wasn't so much an aesthetic issue, rather more that irregularities on the inside of the tube would cause turbulence in the refrigerant. If you don't mind my asking, what material are you working with?[/quote'] Thats the thing, the ports on the cylinder head are rectangle. The plate (that is part of the inlet manifold) that bolts to the cylinder head will follow the ports shape on the head and then the runners are going to be cylinderical, but i didnt draw any of this as i just wanted to get used to the "sweep" command. I wanted to see if i could draw a rectangle that blended into a cylinder, any ideas? It'll be made out of aluminium i'm reckoning, but once the design is in a better stage than it is in now, i'm going to talk to a few manufacturers about different materials that i can use! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 Circular to rectangular transitions can be created with the LOFT command. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_O'neill Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 Thats the thing, the ports on the cylinder head are rectangle. The plate (that is part of the inlet manifold) that bolts to the cylinder head will follow the ports shape on the head and then the runners are going to be cylinderical, but i didnt draw any of this as i just wanted to get used to the "sweep" command. I wanted to see if i could draw a rectangle that blended into a cylinder, any ideas? It'll be made out of aluminium i'm reckoning, but once the design is in a better stage than it is in now, i'm going to talk to a few manufacturers about different materials that i can use! The "how to" for drawing the bent tubes is attached. Feel free to ask about anything you don't understand or any places you find where my fingers outran my brain. As for blending rectangles into circles, you mean something like this? Drawing bent tubes.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kencaz Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 I would suggest extruding your pipe as a solid and shelling it first. Then draw your header and do some subtracting to make the holes, then extrude and subtract to hollow out the header and at the same time cut the tubing protruding into the header. Then Add your caps... This would make the process a little faster I would think. KC Here are some examples of your header connections. You can get some pretty good blends using the "fillet" command. KC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Hebden Posted January 9, 2011 Author Share Posted January 9, 2011 The "how to" for drawing the bent tubes is attached. Feel free to ask about anything you don't understand or any places you find where my fingers outran my brain. As for blending rectangles into circles' date=' you mean something like this?[/quote'] Yea exactly like that mate, fancy writing another pdf for me ? Thanks for the bendy one, i'm going to go through it now! Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Hebden Posted January 9, 2011 Author Share Posted January 9, 2011 Here are some examples of your header connections. You can get some pretty good blends using the "fillet" command.KC Cheers KC. So what have you filleted exactly? As said above, the runners shouldnt actually be rectangle this was just a bog standard start! I like the way your cylinderical runner connects to the plenum, did you use the union command? Or is this what you filleted? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_O'neill Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 Yeah... Bending that square tubing would not be a fun task, and seems kind-of unusual to me as well. KC It is rare to see it in machinery. We did it for a very few customers who were using it more in an ornamental sort of way, and usually that was brass tubing as well. Tried to stay out of those projects though. Too much trouble to make sure they didn't get scratched or dented. Square tubing is self locating rotationally, but its much more difficult to make square holes to insert it in. Common hole punching equipment gets along much better with a round hole and the tooling costs less and is far easier to make and set up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_O'neill Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 Yea exactly like that mate, fancy writing another pdf for me ? Thanks for the bendy one, i'm going to go through it now! Cheers That's actually pretty easy to do. Remark got you started. Draw whatever size rectangle you need, put the appropriate size circle out in front of the rectangle and use the loft command. Create the round section with sweep or extrude or revolve and union them. Nothing to it. You're welcome to the pdf...it was actually a fun thing to do. Hadn't thought about this stuff in a long time. There are a lot of steps in that, and there are better and faster ways to do it, but you'll figure them out as you go along. This is "a" way to do it, and a fairly simple one, and not necessarily "the" way to do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kencaz Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 I like the way your cylinderical runner connects to the plenum, did you use the union command? Or is this what you filleted? Yes, After subtracting they are both Both Unioned and filleted... KC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Hebden Posted January 9, 2011 Author Share Posted January 9, 2011 After reading your great instructions Jack, this is what i have just produced! Its going to help massively, specially when i have to think of the bend angles! As you say, its a way of doing it and a great place to start i think! Once i have got the hang of the bend angles, i should just be able to draw a polyline to suit! Yes, After subtracting they are both Both Unioned and filleted... KC Unioned and filleted? Why? I thought the Union command would "tidy" it up for you? What parts did you have to fillet? Thanks to everyone for there help! Whoop!.dwg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_O'neill Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 You're welcome Chris. Happy to help. Looks like you've got it surrounded now. The fillets on the unioned parts in kencaz's examples are around where the legs go in the holes. Gives it a "welded" look. Otherwise, it would have sharp corners. The manifold I drew for you yesterday is a common a/c header arrangement. The bent legs coming out of the large tube have what are called "beads" on them that are simply mechanical stops to control the insertion depth. These are created on a punch press with a die and piloted punch that simply overcomes the column strength of the tube and forms a bulge around the o.d. of the tube. These are usually brazed into the manifold body. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NAILER20 Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 HI Jack this is exactly my problem one of the issues is that of snapping in an isometric protrayal it looks great but once i flip to a elevation view the cable appears to have snapped off to some random point in space blowing the whole deal. What would be ideal is splitting the model views to three perspectives(X,Y,Z) then laying the points along the path of the cable connecting it with a 3d polyline then sweep along that line. It works but once you sweep in the line you cant modify it which is annoying cause if the engineer re-routes the cable I gotta repeat the process over again wasting a lot of time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_O'neill Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 HI Jack this is exactly my problem one of the issues is that of snapping in an isometric protrayal it looks great but once i flip to a elevation view the cable appears to have snapped off to some random point in space blowing the whole deal. What would be ideal is splitting the model views to three perspectives(X,Y,Z) then laying the points along the path of the cable connecting it with a 3d polyline then sweep along that line. It works but once you sweep in the line you cant modify it which is annoying cause if the engineer re-routes the cable I gotta repeat the process over again wasting a lot of time Nailer20, if you have a drawing like the one you're talking about that wouldn't get you in trouble for sending out, email it to me and I'll be happy to take a look at it and see if I can figure out why it's doing that. Don't know if I can but I'd love to have a crack at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob8lyn Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 Greetings all, I am new to this forum and am quite impressed by the knowledge of the members. I came across the topic of 3D tubes and I have a question/problem that I think fits here…. I wish to automate the creation of tubes, on the order of thousands, from a file of 3D polyline x-y-z coordinates. I have the x-y-z coordinates of thousands of 3D polylines in Excel and text file. Each 3D polyline consists of only 3 points, like a triangle in 3D space with one side missing. For each 3D polyline, I wish to convert it into a solid tube of fixed diameter. Currently to create the tubes, I am manually drawing a circle at the base of each polyline, and also manually extruding the circle to follow the path of the 3D polyline. One possible advantage is that the diameter of all tubes is the same. If necessary, I can program in BASIC to create some brute force script (.scr) files. I would like to avoid LISP, for now. Attached is an much scaled down example of the final output, consisting of 5 pipes, starting with 5 polylines. Any thoughts, comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. 3Dtubes.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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