Holes on irregular suface
Holes on irregular suface
(OP)
I have a method of placing holes on irregular surfaces that seems to work well for me. It has come to my attention that "best practices" dictate that there should be only one primitive, if any, in a model. How do others deal with this situation?





RE: Holes on irregular suface
I am not referring to a small number of holes, which are relatively simple to define, but lofted parts with a hundred or more holes.
RE: Holes on irregular suface
RE: Holes on irregular suface
When you have hundreds of holes to model (all at differing orientations) this becomes quite labor intensive.
I start with points on the surface defining the hole locations. I offset the surface, create a line using measure distance between the point and the offset surface, then extend the length of the line to ensure it is thru the part. Then it is a simple matter to create a tube (with 0 i.d.) using the line. I then create an extracted body of the tube and subtract it.
To edit the location or orientation, I manipulating the line. To edit the size, I use expressions.
I would much prefer to use the hole feature for this, but find it takes more time and effort to do so.
I am always interested in hearing of more efficient methods to accomplish this.
RE: Holes on irregular suface
RE: Holes on irregular suface
The answer (from what I've seen) is a cop-out. In complex lofted designs, most of the big aerospace firms just leave the holes out. They then use a tab block or just points with info in the notes. I've seen this even with Boeings' Model Based Definition Standard files though they do include the notes within the part attributes. Very common for defining pilot rivit holes. It also allows them to do the ol' change the dimention without changing the model in a "legal" manner.
--
Bill
RE: Holes on irregular suface
The line is the result of analyze->distance, and is not associative.
wmalan,
We just use points for our rivet holes also. They are generally drilled at assembly. The holes I do put in are attachment holes for screws and other fasteners.
RE: Holes on irregular suface
Jason
UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2005 SP5.0 on WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2006 SP1.0 on WinXP SP2
RE: Holes on irregular suface
RE: Holes on irregular suface
Both.
RE: Holes on irregular suface
That sounds great for a big company with deep pockets and far out deadlines, but our situation is different. I can't take a week or more to fully constrain each of these models. The changes that I may have to make later will still be quicker than the initial time investment to constrain them. Most of my time is already taken up massaging and tweaking the surfaces we are given in order to produce parts that meet customer requirements.
RE: Holes on irregular suface
Jason
UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2005 SP5.0 on WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2006 SP1.0 on WinXP SP2
RE: Holes on irregular suface
I like that idea, except I would lose too many parameters (which is the crux of my problem).
RE: Holes on irregular suface
Jason
UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2005 SP5.0 on WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2006 SP1.0 on WinXP SP2
RE: Holes on irregular suface
You said:
"Then it is a simple matter to create a tube (with 0 i.d.) using the line. I then create an extracted body of the tube and subtract it."
I'm not understanding the need for the extracted body?
Here's how I would do it. Create a circle and tube with the "top" of it at zero. Export it to a new part. Then using import part with the wcs set to "specify" you can orient your wcs at the top and perp to each individual line and just keep importing the tube. After you orient your wcs you just select the end point of each line...the tube is imported...then hit "back" to specify the next wcs and so on.
Now as far as editing later on....say the hole size needs to change....editing all those curves could be fairly time consuming. I would probably do it with a surface offset and just do them all at once. I'm concerned with time...which is often not a concern of "best practices".
If there was a command to orient the wcs normal to a surface at a point you could eliminate the need for the initial surface offset and line creation too...maybe a grip?
Take care....
RE: Holes on irregular suface