How can I create a circular pattern...?

Greetings:

Is it possible to create a circular pattern in WF2 build M040 to fill
the entire circumference of a circle regardless of its size? For
instance, I would like to pattern an inverse V cut 360° around a
cylinder but I don't know how many instances and the exact increment
angular dimension (I try to adjust the number of instances and angular
increment dimension by trial and error method). The V cut is 1mm
Deep, the base is 1mm Wide, and the V angle is 60°.

Any suggestion and help is greatly appreciated.

John

 

I´d suggest you put some math into a relation!

It may be helpful to create a curve on the cylinder surface,
(i. e. a circle), then place a point on it using length ratio.
A pattern of this with a length ratio offset referring the
math mentioned above does the trick for placing the cuts.

Doing a gearbox the first time?

Cheers

Walther

[anathere]in4tec[andadotthere]de

 

Thanks for your help Walther.

It's not a gearbox but similar. It's a bottle cap. Do you have an
idea what is the proper formula to use for a gearbox? May be I can
use it to model my cap.

 

This is not for a gear, it's for a straight knurled bottle cap:

You need a relation something like:-

p1=floor((d2*pi)/d3)

where

p1 = number of instances
d2 = pitch diameter
d3 = width of instance
substitute the actual d and p numbers of your feature from the model into
the formula.

The floor function rounds P1 down to the nearest lower integer (can't have
real number of instances).

Then d4=360/p1 will give you the pattern increment angle.

Dave

 

:
: > Thanks for your help Walther.
: >
: > It's not a gearbox but similar. It's a bottle cap. Do you have an
: > idea what is the proper formula to use for a gearbox? May be I can
: > use it to model my cap.
:
Machinery's Handbook has a couple pages of formulas used in gear design. The
approach is fundementally different. Since two gears are being mated, once the
diametral pitch (size) of the teeth is decided and the ratio between the gears is
determined, the formulas tell the diameter of the gear. Gears don't generally, as
in your problem, start with a given diameter then see how many evenly spaced
'teeth' can be placed around it at some spacing.

: This is not for a gear, it's for a straight knurled bottle cap:
:
: You need a relation something like:-
:
: p1=floor((d2*pi)/d3)
:
: where
:
: p1 = number of instances
: d2 = pitch diameter
: d3 = width of instance
: substitute the actual d and p numbers of your feature from the model into
: the formula.
:
: The floor function rounds P1 down to the nearest lower integer (can't have
: real number of instances).
:
: Then d4=360/p1 will give you the pattern increment angle.

This looks like a good way to get even spacing of an approximate width of
triangle. It does have the limitation though of being based on an arc segment
whereas what you're trying to fit is the chord of a fixed width. Or at least that
was the premise from the original question. Walther's answer had a similar
premise: pattern by segmenting a curve. Somehow, when this was first presented, I
visualized the curve as a straight line. Offsetting points along it at 1mm
intervals turned into saw teeth and made perfect sense ~ until I mentally tried
wrapping the curve around a circle and all those teeth got smaller. And the fewer
the 'teeth', the more dramatic the effect.

So, while you may be able, with this method, to divide the circumference into
pretty even arc segments, the triangle base (chord length) will be less. In the
simplest case, where the ratio is the highest, draw a line through the center of a
circle: the chord is the diameter, the segment length is half the circumference
(pi*D/2) or 1.57 times the chord length.

I tried this problem using the base of the triangle as the chord, bisecting the
chord with a line drawn from the center to perpendicular to the chord, drawing a
line from the center of the circle to one end of the chord and setting up a
classical trig problem (which could likely be worked into a part relation) to find
out the center angle, then dividing that into 360 to get the number of pattern
instances. The problem with all these scenarios for patterning is they won't come
out evenly with both a fixed diameter and a given chord length. The advantage of
this way is that you ignore the circumference. It comes closest to the desired
length of the base of the triangle.

David Janes