Eccentric cone workflow recommendations

This one is pretty weird. It's an eccentric cone with reinforcement pads/rings welded on. What I'm needing help with is figuring out the best/fastest workflow for adding the pads to the cone.

How I did it:

Align UCS with blue reference line. This was tough, had to use the "za" option under UCS command. Is there a better option?
Flip UCS so "x" is aligned with blue line.
Draw a 18" od circle per new UCS at a arbitrary location along the blue line. Move it out per Z direction away from cone.
Extrude circle with limit option to cone surface.
Freeze cone layer.
Use thicken command on "backside" of circle extrusion per 3/16" thickness.
Delete circle extrusion.
Create another extrusion to make hole in center of pad.

Pretty lengthy process I must say, is there a better way? Any comments would be appreciated, thanks!

Comments

  • James Maeding
    edited October 2020

    I would have done like this:
    Start on WCS.
    Use loft to make cone. That will be drawing two circles at correct dia and centers, as if the cone is collapsed.
    Move the small circle up by length of cone, from 0,0,0 to 0,0,10 say (I did not look at the dwg).
    Then loft to get cone between.
    For circle pads, looks like for welding pipes on, I would model two cylinders.
    You can do this direct on correct plane, by drawing a cube on WCS.
    Then say UCS, Face, and pick side correct.
    Draw your two circles and extrude, then subtract small one from larger.
    Move that to correct location on cone, likely by first moving to some known spot, then move over and up by offsets you know.
    Now for pad thickness.
    I am thinking you model another cone at larger dia, and use that to subtract things.
    That may be tricky as the thickness will not be exact.
    I think the extrude to limit is best, glad you posted that as i have never used it!

    I think the main thing I have to offer is the use of a cube to set UCS at first, by face. Then use the model itself once you have some solids.
    I usually keep my cube handy nearby until done, then nuke away.

    Once people understand that 2d experts become 3d experts in about 30 minutes of messing with solids, subtract, union, and so on.
    thx

  • James,

    I don't how this happened, but my post got doubled up. Please look at the other post with pics/dwg file.

    Is there a way to delete a duplicated post?

  • James Maeding
    edited October 2020

    admin has to do it. I keep telling bricsys they need to attend to the posting issues.
    I'm too busy to look at the dwg's, I did look at the pics.
    Looks like a cool fabrication task.

  • Yes it's a pretty extreme case. Aligning the UCS with the cone at a certain spot is tough.

    Thanks for the comments, you're "cube" method is interesting but I'm in the dark on
    how to apply it to my case. Probably need more coffee!

  • I am not sure how accurate the model should be, but the pads, when unwrapped, are not circles.

  • @Tim Neumann
    Its not that extreme IMO. It all breaks down to 2d actions, done in a plane.
    In your case, the cone will be modeled so an end is planar with the WCS (like a traffic cone).
    That cylinder needs to come in from the side, so you would set the ucs to face of cube side.
    Then draw circles in that plane and subtract to get the tube.
    Then keep on that ucs to move to correct axis location.
    If you needed to use some plane that was rotated, maybe tangent to the cone, you can construct the 2d rectangle as needed, then extrude to get a cube to use for its faces.
    Its true the final product is not a circle plate, but an oval of some kind (ovaloid??)

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