I have been playing around with solidworks a bit, and found it a lot easier to use and more intuitive than Inventor.
I have been adding circle constraints to parts that need them but I am struggling to cut a part.
Just a simple cut like a C-Channel in half.
Can anyone help?
In the part file, go to insert on the tool bar > reference geometry > plane. Then select a side of the part and you can use the offset feature to move the plane to any portion of the part.
Then go to insert > features > split. Select the plane you just added and click on the resulting body you wish to consume.
Hope this helps!
Thank you that helped a lot.
While there is absolutely nothing wrong with using planes to split parts, there are a lot of ways to do things in Solidworks, so I will offer two additional method, neither of which requires inserting reference geometry. These methods are more similar to hack-sawing parts into pieces, and may be easier to use if you’re training middle-school kids.
If you open the attached examples, scroll to the bottom of the tree on the left side, and look at the very last extruded cut feature and also the sketch. In either method, you can just double click the dimension and change it to whatever length you want.
You may notice the sketches are not fully defined…they don’t have to be, but you can if you want. Disclaimer: In a “solidworks class” you might get a lower grade for being “slopply”…but I haven’t been in college for 25 years and I don’t care…
The attached part files have been modified with a small cylindrical feature in all the holes (second and third features from the bottom you can see how I did it with a cut feature and a pattern). This allows you to use concentric mates to help create moving assemblies with the parts. These modified parts are all available on 3d Content Central, or on our team’s web page.
If you are on Vex U, or an advanced high-school user, consider making configurations of the part (e.g. 35 configurations of the C-channel with 1-35 holes). But this is beyond what I would teach/show middle school and most high school students.
C-Channel 1x2x1x35 - cut examples.zip (5.7 MB)
Thanks for that I will have a look tomorrow.
I went through some other parts that I thought needed the cuts in them and applied the same method.
It makes everything so much easier.
The only thing I had trouble with was the low-strength gears have these weird ridges on them that don’t show up on the physical model, but means that the virtual one doesn’t fit together properly. Weird and time consuming to remove, but worth it
I not sure I understand your problem. I just pulled up a 36-tooth gear from 3d Content Central (contributed by Artem Taturevich) and it looks fine, and I loaded the .step file form vexrobotics and converted it to a sldprt, and neither looks strange. Are you saying that you have a model with some extra feature that doesn’t exist?
I must have, will upload a screenshot tomorrow
I don’t want to make a new thread for this, but I have the same exact question for Fusion 360. Just cut a c channel in half.
I have an old inventor library which I have been converting to solidworks parts. Which is probably the cause.
Here is a screenshot of the ridges.
https://gyazo.com/641cfc78c25fe769c285f0788d38341b
I may just have a dodgy part
The ridges on the inside of the square hole are supposed to be there.
Yeah I thought so but they don’t appear on the physical gear so I thought they might not be supposed to be there
I’m pretty sure they do, they’re just really small. I could be wrong, though, I haven’t verified.
They might exist but are removed due to friction rather quickly. Probably a method of gripping the shaft more easily
I just looks at some of our gears…I see them, but they’re mostly worn away. I wouldn’t bother with them on the model (you don’t plan to be making new injection molds or anything, anyway).
But unless you really like the practice of converting parts, look into 3d Content Central to find users (and manufacturers) who have cad models available, and for new parts, the .step file on the VEX Robotics is probably the most up-to-date place to start, if you need to get a part.