Vacuum Cleaner Hose

You don't! Unless you want to bring SolidWorks to it's knees.

To do it "right" would require that you sweep a helix along the center line of your long bendy hose. If it works, it will take an incredibly long time to rebuild. If you just need it to look about right, you could pattern a simple circular cut along your long bendy center line. This will still probably be a real resource hog, but not nearly as bad as the helix. Check out Mike Wilson's Curve Driven Pattern models

Jerry Steiger

Why is sweeping a helix 'right'? - Its not a helix, its just a series of ridges.

will wrote in news:7e4aa593-8817-4d8a-a05a- snipped-for-privacy@1g2000hsl.googlegroups.com:

The wire reinforced hoses are helical, I think. Molded plastic ones like you linked to aren't. The real challenge will be modeling the effects of bending the tube. Wherever the tube bends (everywhere) the ribs will have different shapes that you (or the computer) will need to figure out.

No matter how you do this, it's going to be very compute intensive and slow. If we knew what your end goal was, someone could give more specific advice. Do you need an accurate model for flow computations, a rendering, or just something to put on a drawing?

Its for a render - but I need to model it as there's no easy way of mapping this texture to a bendy tube for rendering.

It's possible.. and process intensive..

But,.. wait!? This is a perfect metaphor on how much SW SUCKS!?!?!?

Hmm,... I like it!! 8^)

zxys wrote in news:2ec37abd-ef80-4e5f-b143-7ec3a89609b4 @v67g2000hse.googlegroups.com:

Learned something again...I didn't know a curve driven pattern had that option.

I've been drawing corrugated tubing in 2D since the 70s and now in SolidWorks, I only do small segments of straight sections, and leave a "clear" toroidal section in bends. Otherwise I would never get any other work done. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

It would take a specialty add-on program to do bent corrugated tubes, and my guess is it wouldn't make the developer much money and it would certainly result in assemblies that would likely cause SolidWorks to crawl, just like a lot of real splines or helical threads do now.

Bo

Thanks zxys.

How would you do this with lines and arcs (not a spline)? Even if i make a composite curve the pattern won't happen (plus there isn't an entire face to select as with the spline).

A Vacuum Cleaner Hose? That sucks!

(sorry) ;)

IYM

So do I! For a guy who complains about SW so much, you sure can make the bitch sit up and beg!

Jerry Steiger

My bad. I assumed that they extruded the stuff with a helical die. How do they make it with individual ridges?

Jerry Steiger

I love raw engineering replies. Solidworks brings itself to its knees, not me.

Anyway if anyones interested (although you probably already know) Fit Spline is useful for creating a spline from arcs and lines - probably quicker for precision etc.

Jerry, with individual ridges, the tubing is made with continuous extruded thermoplastic material that is blown or vacuum expanded into sets of moving mold blocks done in a dual mating "caterpillar track" layout.

Search Google for "extruded corrugated tubing".

I actually worked with a machine designer friend to design a better corrugator system after a bad experience with an early Corma in the late 70s. The corrugators are simple in concept, but touchy to design right to get consistently good tubing.

Cool! Thanks, Bo.

Jerry Steiger