cloudy
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| posted on 24/8/09 at 11:21 AM |
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Any Solidworks Guru's?
Has anybody here used Solidworks to CAD a tubular spaceframe chassis? I'm struggling to find information on the best way/tools to achieve this
as most tutorials concentrate on solid parts...
[Edited on 24/8/09 by cloudy]
www.warnercars.com
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balidey
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| posted on 24/8/09 at 11:25 AM |
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I'm about to do a Haynes roadster.
The best way has really got to be with a 3d sketch and use the weldments feature for adding in the sections. (this is how I have just done the
wishbones and it took a fraction of the time if I'd done it at parts. And it can auto create each part from the weldments if you wanted to
create drawings of each tube afterwards)
But as with SW there are always several ways. Another way would be to model a single tube and use configurations to alter the length and end cut
angles, then drop these into an assembly.
[Edited on 24/8/09 by balidey]
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wescottishmatt
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| posted on 24/8/09 at 11:44 AM |
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When I was doing this I used a series of solids created from a master part and just created a series of small sub assemblies and then joined them all
together. I would try and avoid the 'Configurations' route unless you use it regular. it seems to get a bit messy very quickly.
As said above it can be done in a few different ways but all with the same end result. As for which is best I have no idea.
There are some later images in my photo archive with panels and a bit more work done but its nowhere near finished. I just don't have the time
to get any further with it yet.
[img] [/img]
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cloudy
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| posted on 24/8/09 at 11:52 AM |
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I've experimented with using weldments before, but you seemed to be limited in the choice of weldments to a couple of pipe sizes?
James
www.warnercars.com
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flak monkey
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| posted on 24/8/09 at 11:57 AM |
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You can create your own weldments profiles.
Open up an existing profile and change it to your new one. Save as the correct type in the same folder and you are sorted.
David
Sera
http://www.motosera.com
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cloudy
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| posted on 24/8/09 at 12:05 PM |
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Great, thanks David 
I think the only other problem I had was that only two lines could intersect in a weldment?
James
www.warnercars.com
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Davey D
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| posted on 24/8/09 at 12:14 PM |
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you can download loads more weldment profiles if you go to Design library, then Solidworks Content, then Weldments 
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col1901
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| posted on 24/8/09 at 12:37 PM |
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SolidWorks/Edge
I am designing an Atom-esque style car in Solid Edge V20. I believe the packages are similar. What you need to do is within the assembly
environment, start sketching your chassis (obviously sketching the centre lines of tubes, etc) Try doing this in a sub-section by sub-section
process. Once you have completed this, go to applications on the tool bar and hit "frame design" -your tool bars and icons may change at
this point. Now what you need to do is create a small sample of tube as a new part and save it within your directory, ie a 100mm length of 1"
tubing saved as "1 inch tube" or something. Obviously if you are using different sizes of tube, now whould be a good time to quickly
model them all. Once this has been done you can start using the frame designer comands. Click on frame designer, pick your sketch lines then find
your previously modeled tube sample from the drop down, hit finish and hey presto! From here each individual piece of your frame, regardless of
whether it was drawn as a full perimiter chain can be extracted to create a cutting list. -easy!
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cloudy
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| posted on 24/8/09 at 02:00 PM |
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Another thing,
Do you need to create multiple planes to draw each "level" of the chassis, how do you produce compound angles where the tube isn't
in just one plane?
James
www.warnercars.com
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col1901
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| posted on 24/8/09 at 03:11 PM |
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Just create offset planes for each "level".
If your planes need to be at strange angles, just create co-ordinate points then from there you can create planes at any angle/s. Or create planes
that intersect with end points of scetched lines in space.
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cd.thomson
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| posted on 24/8/09 at 03:14 PM |
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are you making a book cloudy  
Craig
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balidey
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| posted on 24/8/09 at 04:15 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by col1901
Just create offset planes for each "level".
If your planes need to be at strange angles, just create co-ordinate points then from there you can create planes at any angle/s. Or create planes
that intersect with end points of scetched lines in space.
Sketches on planes can get very complicated unless all the 'levels' are parallel. Thats why I suggest using a 3d Sketch.
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cloudy
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| posted on 24/8/09 at 04:36 PM |
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I'm unfamiliar with 3d sketches, every time i've tried I just end up with lines going in completely odd directions and unable to dimension
it back....
James
www.warnercars.com
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