Flat/flex cables with spiral flex

Hi:

I've been looking at historical discussions on this topic in this NG,
and several of the comments in the past were helpful.

In the past, I've modeled flat flexing cables in Pro/E using the
sheetmetal package. The way I created them was to model the spiral as a
progressive series of ~180 degree bends, with each bend larger than
the one inside of it.
What was bad about that was that it failed to accurately describe the
cable length and geometry. What was good about it was that it was
probably "close enough" to the actual length to allow me to specify it;
I could also modify the radius and angle of each bend and thus get the
cable to "flex", and finally I could make a flat pattern and as well
create the typical "origami" type folds in the cable.

OTOH, Pro/E didn't have the nice neat "spiral curve" command that SW
has.
Does anyone out there have any experience modeling a flat flex cable as
a sheetmetal part and then incorporating a spiral feature?

Thanks in Advance,
-Dave Adams-

 

You could make two spirals on parallel planes, and then use the lofted
bend to make them a sheetmetal part. This also allows you to flatten it.

 

Matt:

Thanks- I'll try that.

I have the two spirals already. BTW one is merely a sketched "use edge"
of the other. I tried adding a deform feature on a straight rectilinear
base feature. It works, except that I get a sort of lenticular-shaped
"kink" running right along the middle of the deformed part (possibly
because the start curves , which are simply offsets of an upper and
lower edge, and the deform curves are not exactly the same length)

The lofted bend sounds like it might work better. I'll get back to you
on that.

Dave Adams

 

Hey Matt:

It works!

BTW, in case anyone wants to try it:



1) Create the Helix/Spiral curve first- using the "Spiral" option.

2) Create two parallel planes which will define the boundaries of the
spiral solid.

3) Create two parallel sketched curves, one on each of the planes in
Step 2 using the "Convert Entities" sketcher feature to copy the Spiral
from Step 1.

4) Create a "Lofted Bend" feature (from the Sheetmetal pull-down menu)
(I find that I need to create a "dummy" sheetmetal base feaure first
that I then have to delete before I can use the Lofted Bend command.
Not sure why, but it probably goes to my lack of skill.)

5) Go have a cup of coffee - you just did something that someone else
using Pro/E would take weeks to work out


Regards,
Dave Adams