8 replies to this topic

[meteorhound1]

Ok so recently I've been trying to work out how to use Autodesk Inventor Professional 2015 to try and design possible ideas for homemades. So what I'm trying to do is CAD a model of a standard Pumpsnap 3.0. I'm having issues on how to slot the PVC. Can anyone help? (Google has not helped me so far)

Edited by Aeromech, 23 November 2015 - 02:40 AM.

[Daniel Beaver]

Inventor has some good built-in tutorials, go through those first. For things like slots with PVC, you'll have to create a reference plane, and then use an extrusion removal.

[meteorhound1]

Inventor has some good built-in tutorials, go through those first. For things like slots with PVC, you'll have to create a reference plane, and then use an extrusion removal.

Thanks! Didn't think to check there before hand. On another note, does nerfhaven have a CAD Archive of blasters?

[Spiderbite]

There probably should be one. Ideally, a writeup could be as simple as posting the link to download the .iam file, where each part could be opened up to look at the dimensions to build it.

[Aeromech]

I currently use Inventor, here's how I'd do it, though there are other ways:

"Start 2D sketch," then click on "origin" in your modeling tree, and select one of the planes that lie along the axis of your tube. This will bring up the correct plane to sketch on.

Change the view to "wireframe" so you can actually see your sketch.

When everything is constrained and you are happy with your sketch, Hit finish sketch, then extrude it. Make sure you select "cut" and "through all" in "both directions" in the extrude pop up menu.

That will create slots through two "sides" of the tube.


EDIT:

Inventor has some good built-in tutorials, go through those first. For things like slots with PVC, you'll have to create a reference plane, and then use an extrusion removal.

Sorry Beaver, didn't see that.

Edited by Aeromech, 19 November 2014 - 11:15 PM.

[Meaker VI]

On another note, does nerfhaven have a CAD Archive of blasters?

We do not - if you're wanting it to be just homemade blasters, I'd be open to help with one. I primarily use sketchup, and it's pretty easy for me to knock out models. Personally, I'd think sketchup would be a better format since it's freely accessible and has built-in public cloud storage, but I could export to many formats. Not sure what the free version of Sketchup can open though.

[roboman]

We do not - if you're wanting it to be just homemade blasters, I'd be open to help with one. I primarily use sketchup, and it's pretty easy for me to knock out models. Personally, I'd think sketchup would be a better format since it's freely accessible and has built-in public cloud storage, but I could export to many formats. Not sure what the free version of Sketchup can open though.

The free version of SketchUp can only handle .skp and .3ds files, as well as Google Earth terrain (which, while kinda neat, is largely useless for us). As far as I've been able to figure out, Sketchup files are generally incompatible with most major CAD systems. If you pay for the PRO version, it lets you export 3D DXF and DWF files, but those are still generally difficult to work with in most solid modeling programs.

As people have mentioned before, students can get an educational copy of Inventor for free, and it can export to virtually any standard CAD format you can imagine (except .skp). I'm partial to SolidWorks, but it's much harder to obtain a (legal) copy of it for free. Torrents are widely distributed and easily available, but I know some people are less than comfortable with that. The files are directly compatible with Inventor, though (and you can export .ipt/.iam/.idw files if you install the free Inventor View software).

Someone made a CAD file directory at one point. It's very incomplete and not maintained. I haven't found a need for one, at least for my files. I keep everything in Dropbox and share links to folders when people ask me for files. Almost all of my CAD files are available to anyone who asks for them, as long as they're in a state that I'm happy with (though boltsled files will not be made available - draw it up with a pair of calipers if you want to create your own derivative).

[Aeromech]

I use inventor these days, but I was trained on NX as well (RPI for two years, before I transferred.)

I know you can get the latest version of Autodesk Inventor if you have a student email address. I typically export it as a .step file if I need it to work with other software packages, but as roboman mentioned there are many different formats to save your work as.

And yeah I do not advise pirating $40,000 engineering software, they will come after you for that shit. It ain't worth it, man.

[KaneTheMediocre]

And yeah I do not advise pirating $40,000 engineering software, they will come after you for that shit. It ain't worth it, man.

As with all things in life, the correct course of action is to have shitloads of money.

edit:

On a serious note, there really does seem to be a complete lack of affordable or free 3d engineering software. There are a lot of free and affordable CAD programs, but I haven't found any of them to really have the core functions that Solidworks and Inventor have had for over a decade. Few of them do assembly modeling or even import/export useful interchange file formats like *.stp and *.igs . Many are 2.5d, or model in formats that work great for 3d rendering but not so great for physical construction by computer driven machines. The open-sauce movement seems to endorse openscad, but that is more of a 3d programming language than a gui, and doesn't import and export formats that other software can use well.

Edited by KaneTheMediocre, 22 November 2014 - 06:40 PM.