MonkeyHunter
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| posted on 19/10/04 at 12:13 PM |
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Solidworks - Parts
Hi,
I wasnt sure where to post this, so here it is; i am just starting to fully model my car in solidworks, and i was wondering if it would be a good
idea to set up some sort of solidworks parts database, for things like hubs etc? Im building a midy with MR2 running gear, so most of my bits will be
of little use to most, but i would be happy to share.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
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Alan B
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| posted on 19/10/04 at 12:57 PM |
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Hey...sounds like my car..
I'm also getting more into SW too..;D
Check out the mid-engine section if you don't already....
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MonkeyHunter
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| posted on 19/10/04 at 01:28 PM |
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Hi Alan,
well i was going to build a standard locost, but I had an engine already (1.6L Honda Vtec, 170bhp.) and they spin backwards, so middy was the
obvious way forward. I have taken a lot of comfort in the fact yourself and others are nearly there, and although not fully designed yet, i have made
most of the hardware decisions, and have most of the bits. So look out for a Alan B clone in the UK in a few years time!! 
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craig1410
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| posted on 19/10/04 at 09:42 PM |
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MonkeyHunter,
I think that sounds like a great idea, but I'd have to be honest and say that it only sounds great because I'd love to model my car in
Solidworks but have never been able to get anywhere fast with it. If someone else designed all the parts for me then that might give me a fighting
chance of doing something constructive with it!!
I started messing with Solidworks when I started my build with the idea that I would design in CAD a few steps ahead of the real build. However, I
have never got beyond the first dozen or so tubes in CAD before I tied myself up in knots with mating conflicts (no funny comments please...) At this
rate my car will be complete before I've even got a basic chassis together in CAD... God knows how I'd get on trying to design somthing
like an upright or de-dion axle...
Anyway, enough of my failings as a CAD designer, I still think it's a good idea. I'm going to stick to programming and leave the graphical
stuff to those who can draw!
Cheers,
Craig.
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blueshift
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| posted on 19/10/04 at 10:43 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by craig1410
However, I have never got beyond the first dozen or so tubes in CAD before I tied myself up in knots with mating conflicts (no funny comments
please...)
Hur hur hur
That does indeed sound like a good idea. I have a colocated webserver I could run such a site off, not sure the best way to implement it though. Any
ideas?
I have some bits I can contribute, too.. +4 chassis with de dion rear end mods, my own wishbone designs, cortina uprights, gts shocks..
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craig1410
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| posted on 20/10/04 at 08:30 AM |
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Yeah yeah, go on - have a good laugh...
I seem to recall you tried in vain to give me some Solidworks pointers a while back but as you can tell, it never sunk in. I was trying to build each
"tube" as a part with its ends cut at the angles specified in the McSorley plans but when you try to mate it all toether it never seemed
to quite fit. I think this may be down to the dreaded rounding/precision errors causing the mates to never quite mate up. I recall you had a clever
scheme of making each tube figure out where the cut points were by extending each one to the mating surface of the next tube but I couldn't get
my head around how this all worked. Any chance of sending me a drawing with a couple of tubes mated up in this manner? Let's say tubes
A1,A2,B1,B2 for starters? Of course, if you fancy sending me a copy of the entire chassis then that would be even better...
As for how such as "sharing" scheme would work I think there should be something in there to prevent people taking but not giving either
through incompetence (like me!) or sheer laziness. Old BBS's used to do this by having a ratio of downloads to uploads (say 3:1) to make sure
that you contributed at least one part for every three that you downloaded. Of course something like a whole chassis is a bit different to a
suspension bush but I don't think you want to make it too complex or it won't work. You also need to ensure that people don't abuse
the system by uploading garbage in return for good parts. If these parts were stored in a hierarchy by donor vehicle and/or category (eg steering,
suspension, chassis etc) with some sort of limited keyword search capability then I think that's all that is needed. It should also show the
author and perhaps have some form of "rating" to indicate the completeness/quality of the drawing.
How does that sound?
Cheers,
Craig.
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Mad Dave
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| posted on 20/10/04 at 08:45 AM |
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Craig, which version of Solidworks do you have?
Later Solidworks packages has a weldments feature which enables you to place a particular size section onto a line and the trim the ends to other
sections in a number of different ways. If you don't have this it is a lot more difficult to produce models.
Dave
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craig1410
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| posted on 20/10/04 at 10:43 AM |
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Dave,
Solidworks 2003 at present.
That may well be a useful feature if it does what you say it does.
Blueshift, is this the method that you were using?
Cheers,
Craig.
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MonkeyHunter
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| posted on 20/10/04 at 11:14 AM |
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Ok, so we are agreed it would be a good idea then? Thats a good start
Im not sure it would be necessary to force people to contribute, in order to get parts. I imagine that that would restrict the speed that the parts
database grew, as if you were starting off designing a chassis, you would need to upload parts to get uprights for example, but at the beginning of
the design they would be unlikely to have any parts that were not available.
It strikes me that the people on this board, all have a common purpose, and it seems to be very friendly and free of the bickering etc, that occurs on
most other boards I frequent. I imagine that there would be very few people other than the members of this site, which would be interested in the
parts, so if access were restricted to members here than that should be enough. Those who can contribute and don?t mind sharing will, those who cant
contribute, can do so through the site in different ways by giving advice etc.
Though most people use the same major parts like uprights etc, it would be useful for everyone to have a selection of Rad?s to try out for example,
and as there is quite a variety being used, this is where I see the database becoming useful to everyone.
Scott.
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Mad Dave
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| posted on 20/10/04 at 11:21 AM |
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Craig
I have recently upgraded to SW 2005. Its got some fantastic features such as the weldments also sheet metal work. Maybe you should upgrade aswell if
you use it a lot.
Dave
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craig1410
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| posted on 20/10/04 at 11:24 AM |
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Scott,
Yes I agree with what you have said, it should indeed work just fine on the "honour" system and this can always be monitored and adjusted
as required. As for your mention of radiators, that is a very good point, I hadn't actually thought beyond the usual bits like chassis'
and suspensin parts. I have a VW radiator (the larger variant) and even my skills with Solidworks could capture the basic shape and extents of this
part. The same could be true for the likes of engine blocks and gearboxes although I would appreciate some guidance on how to get dims for such
irregular shapes without a 3D laser scanner.
One suggestion that I would make is that we make sure we stick to a particular version of SW and ideally create a template where the units of measure
are defined in advance along with any other useful settings. This should make interoperability easier.
Yep, count me in, I can now see how I can in fact contribute to the cause!
Blueshift, is it worth you speaking to Chris (Webmaster) to see how best the technical side could be put in place. It would be nice to just have a
link on the LB forum over to your co-hosted server with authentication info carried over automatically. Assuming of course that Chris is as keen on
this idea as we are...
Cheers,
Craig.
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Chris Green
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| posted on 20/10/04 at 11:43 AM |
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I am slowly building up my SW library, and currently have an almost finished McSorley +4 chassi and a de-dion assy.
I will be happy to share my files also.
Regards,
Chris.
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Chris Green
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| posted on 20/10/04 at 11:48 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by craig1410
One suggestion that I would make is that we make sure we stick to a particular version of SW and ideally create a template where the units of measure
are defined in advance along with any other useful settings. This should make interoperability easier.
Cheers,
Craig.
Craig,
This would be dificult, because as soon as the latest version of SW is available, most companies install it. It is part of my reseller and support
agreement that I receive the latest products and service packs asap.
Because of this, I couldn't model anything apart from in SW2004 format. (soon to be 2005, but we always wait for the first service pack after a
new release).
Also, some people have got some slightly less legit copies of SW, we couldn't expect them to upgrade the software that they are working on?
I'm not sure of a solution for this.
Regards,
Chris.
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Mad Dave
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| posted on 20/10/04 at 12:34 PM |
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When you open an ealier version of a model it says that it will be saved as the new version which is fine for us. This propably means people with old
versions can't open our newer files
Dave
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Chris Green
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| posted on 20/10/04 at 12:58 PM |
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yes Dave, that is correct.
However, SW2004 cannot open files that are earlier than SW95 format. but I doubt anyone would have Solidworks from that long ago!
Regards,
Chris
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craig1410
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| posted on 20/10/04 at 01:41 PM |
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Chris,
Fair point about the versions, I suppose we'll just have to make the best of it and see what happens. I still think that a standard template
would be worthwhile or at least a set of guidelines to enhance interoperability. Obviously some of you will already have models built but for any new
models this would still be worthwhile I think. Does everyone work in millimeters these days or what? Are there any standards about what is the top,
bottom, front and back of a model? (That's bound to provoke a few sniggers... ) What about angles - what is normally used as a reference for
cutting angles? (eg. if you cut a tube straight cross, perpendicular to its length, is this 90deg or 0deg?) That's the sort of stuff I mean.
Anyway, you guys with Solidworks experience can more easily suggest how we kick this off, I am simply applying my generic project experience as an IT
Manager but maybe that's not appropriate here. (Exits stage left...)
Cheers,
Craig.
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Chris Green
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| posted on 20/10/04 at 01:50 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by craig1410
Chris,
Fair point about the versions, I suppose we'll just have to make the best of it and see what happens. I still think that a standard template
would be worthwhile or at least a set of guidelines to enhance interoperability. Obviously some of you will already have models built but for any new
models this would still be worthwhile I think. Does everyone work in millimeters these days or what? Are there any standards about what is the top,
bottom, front and back of a model? (That's bound to provoke a few sniggers... ) What about angles - what is normally used as a reference for
cutting angles? (eg. if you cut a tube straight cross, perpendicular to its length, is this 90deg or 0deg?) That's the sort of stuff I mean.
Anyway, you guys with Solidworks experience can more easily suggest how we kick this off, I am simply applying my generic project experience as an IT
Manager but maybe that's not appropriate here. (Exits stage left...)
Cheers,
Craig.
Yes, a standard template would be a good idea.
I work in millimeters.
I generally have the XY plane as the front, and ZY as the side plane.
This isn't too critical, as it can be changed after the model has been started. It is still best to have a common template though.
A set of guidelines would be useful, (although tbh,we can't expect people to change the way they work. There are so many different ways to model
3D components.)
Best Regards,
Chris.
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MonkeyHunter
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| posted on 20/10/04 at 02:32 PM |
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craig1410
I have been thinking more along the rad/engine/box/fuel tank and other components (bodywork?) line, as everyone generally builds one of a handful of
chassis, but all the other components mean that the permutations become quite large, i often see people asking which alt will fit in a certain space,
if we could have a few alt's modelled, then people could plug them in and see if they fitted. Obviously this sort of detail is not going to
happen over night, but if we could coordinate things a little im sure it wouldnt take us to long, and perhaps we could see some more elegant solutions
to space problems as a result?
Im still learning how to use solidworks (2003), but i can see that it is a very powerful tool and with a bit of time spent on it, could potentially
save people a lot of time on their builds.
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blueshift
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| posted on 20/10/04 at 11:20 PM |
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Hi chaps. Thought I'd get the ball rolling, I have uploaded my current working set of solidworks files to my webserver. 7.5MB, includes +4
chassis and front suspension, cortina and GTS shock models, cut-out-and-keep tube templates, everything a young boy needs
Enjoy:
http://www.leetfighter.com/locost%20solidworks%20things.zip
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phelpsa
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| posted on 21/10/04 at 08:33 AM |
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Wow, we've just got broadband (last week) and I never knew how quick it was.
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blueshift
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| posted on 21/10/04 at 08:44 AM |
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heh, it helps that that server is NOT on broadband but something a little quicker
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Chris Green
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| posted on 21/10/04 at 08:53 AM |
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my server at work is really slow at the moment, so when I download it, it terminates after about 10 minutes, and tells me that the D/L is complete.
I've managed to download 2MB, but the zip file is corrupted, so I can't actually access the files!
Gutted! I will have to wait for the server to sort itself out!
If not, I'll d/l it at home tonight.
Cheers Blueshift!
Regards,
Chris.
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Alan B
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| posted on 21/10/04 at 01:44 PM |
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Cheers mate...looks good.....thanks for sharing
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MonkeyHunter
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| posted on 21/10/04 at 02:35 PM |
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Very nice blueshift, cheers for starting things off; I cant open all the files though as i am using SW 2003 
I will contribute some stuff, as soon as i have a better grip of solid works, and some decent models of bits.
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blueshift
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| posted on 21/10/04 at 02:53 PM |
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Um, you should be able to, I use solidworks 2003 as well. what can't you open?
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