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Flat/flex cables with spiral flex

Hi:

I've been looking at historical discussions on this topic in this NG, and several of the comments in the past were helpful.

In the past, I've modeled flat flexing cables in Pro/E using the sheetmetal package. The way I created them was to model the spiral as a progressive series of ~180 degree bends, with each bend larger than the one inside of it. What was bad about that was that it failed to accurately describe the cable length and geometry. What was good about it was that it was probably "close enough" to the actual length to allow me to specify it; I could also modify the radius and angle of each bend and thus get the cable to "flex", and finally I could make a flat pattern and as well create the typical "origami" type folds in the cable.

OTOH, Pro/E didn't have the nice neat "spiral curve" command that SW has. Does anyone out there have any experience modeling a flat flex cable as a sheetmetal part and then incorporating a spiral feature?

Thanks in Advance,

-Dave Adams-

Reply to
Dave Adams
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You could make two spirals on parallel planes, and then use the lofted bend to make them a sheetmetal part. This also allows you to flatten it.

Dave Adams wrote:

Reply to
matt

Matt:

Thanks- I'll try that.

I have the two spirals already. BTW one is merely a sketched "use edge" of the other. I tried adding a deform feature on a straight rectilinear base feature. It works, except that I get a sort of lenticular-shaped "kink" running right along the middle of the deformed part (possibly because the start curves , which are simply offsets of an upper and lower edge, and the deform curves are not exactly the same length)

The lofted bend sounds like it might work better. I'll get back to you on that.

Dave Adams

Reply to
Dave Adams

Hey Matt:

It works!

BTW, in case anyone wants to try it:

1) Create the Helix/Spiral curve first- using the "Spiral" option.

2) Create two parallel planes which will define the boundaries of the spiral solid.

3) Create two parallel sketched curves, one on each of the planes in Step 2 using the "Convert Entities" sketcher feature to copy the Spiral from Step 1.

4) Create a "Lofted Bend" feature (from the Sheetmetal pull-down menu) (I find that I need to create a "dummy" sheetmetal base feaure first that I then have to delete before I can use the Lofted Bend command. Not sure why, but it probably goes to my lack of skill.)

5) Go have a cup of coffee - you just did something that someone else using Pro/E would take weeks to work out

Regards, Dave Adams

Reply to
Dave Adams

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