Wavy Edge
Ok, this one is from my friend Stan. Stan was also responsible for the three-cornered dome modeling challenge from a few weeks ago. Now Stan wants to put a wavy edge on a pot. I see this same issue come up when people ask for a “wavy washer” or belleville washer. They will use the same techniques.
I’ll show a couple of ways to do it. Because I was slow on the uptake, Stan came up with a solution of his own, which shows some nice technique with a Spline-On-Surface, relations to a layout sketch and a reference plane.
With the spline in place, he was able to sweep a cut. That spline must have been a lot of work, and as always with the spline you need to be careful. Sometimes sketch relations don’t work the way you think they should. Stan also said that he wanted more control over the shape of the spline at the bottom of the wave, so he didn’t want a completely top/bottom symmetrical sine curve.
Here is the way I would have done it. Much simpler, I think, and with easier to control shape:
So that’s a loft between lines on angled planes, mirror the surface loft, pattern the mirror, knit it all together, then cut with surface. Of course you can use an equation to drive the spacing and size of the waves. Consider using a global variable for the number of instances for the circular pattern. Because the angled plane happens before the circular pattern, driving the plane angle with the number of instances will cause some problems with history (might require 2 rebuilds to be correct).
Use the tangency weighting in the loft feature to control the shape of the wave. For example the lower sketch might have a 2 weight instead of the default 1 weight. This would make the lower part of the wave wider, and the top narrower.
Another way to do this, if the pattern were something other than a wave, would be using the Wrap feature. I wouldn’t use Wrap on a wave because you’d have to get the wrap to perfectly line up. But on something like the above, wrap and pattern works great.
Ok, Stan is bearing the load for you guys. Who’s next to step up with a cool modeling challenge?
@matt
I didn’t ask you to do it for me? I only ask you to write it step by step process and also one of your images arn’t even showing up. But it’s okay, I figured it all bymyself. Took me 2 hours to do it, but hey, I only started using solidworks 3 weeks ago.
@Sarita
Why is it that students think I want to do their homework for them? If you’re going to learn anything you’ve got to use your imagination a little bit. Imagination may be the whole exercise. If I do that for you, I’ve robbed you of a chance to use your brain.
Hi, sorry to bother you, but do u think you could go through this process again, step by step? Still a new to solidworks, but really need to achieve this for an assignment!!