Drafts

[donha]

Does anyone have a good reference for creating drafts in Pro/E? 12 years at this and I still cannot figure out all the different options and how they function. The manuals are useless. Sometimes I think they don't want you to know.

 

[jabbadeus]

Are you using 2001 or Wildfire? Drafts are significantly easier in WF than 2001.



Any specific options you don't understand?



In 2001, one of the first choices you make is Tweak or Intersect. Most of the time you'll use Tweak. (That's from an old menu that refers to commands that can add and remove material simultaneous from the same surface.) You use Intersect when you don't want your draft overlapping off a surface / over an edge.



Constant or variable, well, do you want the same draft angle over your draft surfaces, or do you want to have Pro interpolate between different angles defined at points along the edges.



Neutral curve or neutral plane: your neutral object defines where on your draft surfaces you want zero change (hence neutral).



Other choices deal with whether you want to split the draft surfaces or not. If you do choose to split, Dependent and Independent deal with whether you want the same draft angle on both sides of the split.



There are some particular things about splits. For example, neutral curve draft, split at surface requires you to define 2 neutral curves. With neutral curve, split at curve, your neutral curve is also your split curve.



That should cover most of it. Let me know if you have other questions.



David Martin

Torgon Industries

 

[donha]

Thanks David,

I am on 2001. I have sat at a terminal for hours attempting to duplicate the different type of drafts PTC gives as references in the user manual. Following their instructions, I still cannot get some of the drafts to work. I would love to see someone put together a straightforward manual on some of the complicated features of Pro/E. Just a thought

 

[rcamp]

Some of the drafts are simple to use, some are not.



What are the errors messages the system give you when they fail?



On thing to remeber is that when you create drafts, it has to extend OR trim the surfaces that are adjacent to the surface being drafted depending on what side of the neutral plane they exist on. Go to one side of the neutral plane and adjacent surfaces must be extended to remain in contact with the drafted surface, to the other side of the neutral plane and theymust be trimmed so that there is no overlap.

This is what usually causes problems. If you have a round on and side of your surface you are attempting to draft, it will fail, because when extends the the surface of the round it wraps. Other times, when it trims it may run into a nearby feature and cause a failure.



Split drafts aren't too bad. It is sometimes getting the draft angles spec'd right (one side is positive angle the other negetive). All surfaces to be drafted have to be contiguos (touching each other) and you must specify a planar neighbor that touchs the draft surface (for some goofy reason).



Call tech support, they probably aren't to busy today.