Draft from where?

[cityjack]

Good morning all,

I am presently finishing up a plastic part design and its been sometime since I applied draft via my CAD package. Is it advisable to apply draft to features from the same draft reference or neutral plane no matter where the features lie in reference to that plane?

Thanks guys.

Sid

 

[cowski]

Knowing nothing of your part or design intent, it is impossible to advise with certainty one way or the other.

However, in general, I would advise against applying draft to multiple features from a common neutral plane because it does not give good control over the final size of the features. Usually, you want to control certain dimensions of the feature; applying draft from an arbitrary neutral plane will change the size and may be detrimental to your design intent. For instance, if you have multiple ribs at different levels in the part and draft them all from a common neutral plane, ribs above the plane may get too thin to fill properly (or disappear completely) while those below the plane may get overly thick and cause sink issues and/or increase the cycle time unnecessarily.

But again, depending on the design of your part and how it interacts with other parts (if any), drafting from a common neutral plane may work and save you some time in the process.

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[cityjack]

Perfect answer sir. I appreciate that. Thats exactly what I was thinking and looking for. Have a good day and thank you again.