Little project: a repair part for a friend

Truth be told, using Alibre for this little pissant project was a bit of overkill, not really necessary at all. But I find using Alibre kinda fun, and if I don't use tools like that once in a while I start to forget how to use them. Where Alibre really shines is when designing something with quite a few parts that need to fit together and work together. It's good for playing "what if" because it's a parametric solid modeller. You can change a dimension in a part that's in an assembly, and everything in that assembly affected by that dimension will change in response. When you get your model to your satisfaction, it can then generate dimensioned drawings of every part and assembly. If you later change a dimension in a part, all of the drawings of that part and assemblies affected by that part will be changed accordingly. I think it can also produce output compatible with some CNC systems but I don't really know anything about that.

I once attended a free seminar hosted by the local SolidWorks dealer. I have to say that Alibre is not in the same class as SolidWorks, but SolidWorks is way beyond my play budget at several grand a seat with annual maintenance not optional -- ya gotta pay to play. Alibre does about everything I want to do, albeit not always quite as easily as SolidWorks, and its price was commeasurate with its value to me.

You didn't consider the 30 minutes drive time to spend that minute on the ladder.

Wes

Brian Lawson wrote: ... if you were to make a single piece that had a full end

That's sweet! Ultimate KISS. Bob

On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 05:10:09 -0500, the infamous Wes scrawled the following:

$190/hr beats $30/hr in my book. Yours? ;)

-- If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do. -- Samuel Butler

More like 8 minutes according to Google Maps.

Cool! Then he better honor his word when she tells him she has your replacement part in hand.

Wes

I tried to model what I think you said. I skipped the crescent part. Is this the idea?

That's more trouble to make than my scheme because I'd have to make two hook parts, but I think it's a better scheme. With my scheme I only made one hook part and then cut it to make the two parts. With your scheme, engagement of the hooks is guaranteed by the geometry and that's very easy to get right because the key features start as .3125" holes drilled .500" apart.

That doesn't quite work, but the screw is not a problem atop the ladder because it's captive in one of the parts before they leave the floor.

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move the parting line to the center and near one end. Now the pieces on each side are identical. Only one part to make. Send the design to "the Kid". He'll send a CNC ready program to me. We can knock out a few hundred and you can start a business. Your business will be low profit so you should qualify for some sort of subsidy and make millions. But then the kid and I will want you to provide Obama health insurance and you'll be broke.

Karl

The pieces are already identical. I entered the same part twice into the assembly, flipped one to get it oriented correctly.

BIG SNIP

MORE SNIP

Hey Don,

Zackly!!!

Brian Lawson