[guru_florida]

Doing some research it seems like you can make a sketch and thin-feature extrude something that looks something like |WWWWW| , mate each end in the assembly and dragging the assembly the bellows would auto-expand/contract. Anyone done this before?

The way I was thinking was making each rib a part and multi-mating like hinges, but this sounds like a resource hog.

Doing bellows is kind of a cosmetic feature, but I would like to photo render it but generally leave it supressed.

[tnik]

I would think you would be able to do it with a design table, or with equations.. don't think you would be able to drag it realtime tho.. eg. both ends would change, and the bellow would regenerate on a rebuild.

[JerryFlyGuy]

You could do it w/ simple sketch, but like was mentioned. You'll not get a real time regeneration of the bellows. One thing to remember about SW or any 3D software. There are things which are needed in a model, and things that are like the fancy icing.. I didn't bother w/ Bellows on my design, unless your going to do photo rendering or something, just make a block extrude "up to surface" and don't bother w/ all the pleating.. it'll just make your machine crunch... and slow ya down..

my 2 cents..

J

[guru_florida]

I was hoping it was something that I could do fairly easily, verify my design and generate photo rendering, and then suppress in the default configuration like I do with the assembly bolts. It's nice being able to see everything line up -- in the bellows case, for both compressed and uncompressed states.

As for "fancy icing", there was someone that once said that to me regarding adding assembly bolts and I said, "I wish I used assembly bolts when I first designed my machine, because when I made the real machine I realized two of my Socket Head Cap Screws interfered during regular machine motion...I didnt pick that up since I didnt have the bolts in the assembly." It's not just for icing, it's nice to see how things fit, even bellows.

Now for some bona-fide *fancy icing*! Check out this ballscrew with the grounded ballways rendered with a revolve-cut! Now thats icing! ...but makes a great photo render...it looks and behaves exactly like the real thing with the screw-mate. lol

You could do it w/ simple sketch, but like was mentioned. You'll not get a real time regeneration of the bellows. One thing to remember about SW or any 3D software. There are things which are needed in a model, and things that are like the fancy icing.. I didn't bother w/ Bellows on my design, unless your going to do photo rendering or something, just make a block extrude "up to surface" and don't bother w/ all the pleating.. it'll just make your machine crunch... and slow ya down..

my 2 cents..

J

[guru_florida]

I did get the sketch of the bellows working properly. I can drag an edge of the sketch and the sketch acts like an accordian, i.e. relations properly setup. No luck on doing some type of extrude of this and having a flexible part though, the sketch stays rigid. I am suprised that Solidworks can't do flexible parts, it seems like it wouldnt be too hard since the sketches are already setup relations-wise to allow flexibility. I know it would be more computation, but not so bad for modern multi-core systems.

Also, why not use one of those new physics cards gamers are using, seems like a good application for physics intensive engineering software.

oh well, its not a killer for sure. I can do with a rigid bellow to verify the design.

[JerryFlyGuy]

It is something that you can do fairly easy w/ a simple sketch. The sketch would only need to have 1 dimension and the rest of it would be construction lines to keep it all together. I will not update real time in the assembly [only in the sketch] if you moved your axis you'd have to Crtl+Q each time to get it to update.. [or maybe not depending on how you have your updating configured] but it would update and be flexible to a degree.
Flexible parts are difficult to model because they have to be constrained to some degree or in some way.. Remember, Sw is a mathamatical model rather than a visual model. Every little thing about the surface shape, volume, mass, edge shape [and many many other things] are defined to an 8 decimal number.

Bolts to some are icing, I've done the same as yourself and put them into my machine design. You have to stop and look at the design first and try to envision where they might be an issue [it takes more than just throwing bolts into an assembly to find the problems]. I knew I had a tight fit on my linear bearings to the rail alignment hardware and put the bolts in to make sure they would clear [they do.. by ~3/32" in real life as well as the model] I've also modeled wrenches and tools to see if I could actually access some of the bolts and to date haven't had really any issues, because I took the time to do these steps.

But for most things the little details like this [your swept cut for example] just drag down your system and don't have a whole lot of "value adding" to the model. Usually you don't need the screw mates or what have you. For most of your modeling they won't get used. If you do put them in there, they still probably wouldn't get used unless your doing animations or physical simulations etc. They're cool, but have a very narrow area of use.

I've learned over the years that there are things which pay and things which can take up alot of time and don't really pay when doing modeling.. however, they are cool and/or neat.. Being efficient at modeling is always a compromise [and this is coming from someone who usually gets told I'm putting to much detail into stuff ]

I recently just finished a machine w/ +3800 parts not including the bolts and nuts [which were all installed for part quantities on the drawings] The model included plant air, water, O2, hydraulic plumbing [all formed stainless tubing] w/ all the fittings and eletrical routing as well. When it comes to putting in the details.. I've been there

Nice rendering btw!

J

[guru_florida]

Yes, the swept cut was definately overkill!! It was a how-to exercise only. But I've asked this question before without a solid answer: If I leave the revolved cut in the part, but supress it, does it still use any performance? As a programmer, I would think it would use no computational resources, only the small amount of data in the file to describe it. Thus, leaving it in, supressed, is fine, I can unsupress it for photo rendering.

Even though I have a new QuadCore, I still choose performance over icing. I havent decided for sure if my suppressed bolts are still slowing down the system more than before I added them all. Overall, the assembly seems to have slowed down some, but maybe it was some other things I did since then.

btw: to any others reading this thread, youtube has some nice solidworks tutorials/demos.

[JerryFlyGuy]

To my knowledge it uses less horsepower if it's suppressed. It still takes some extra juice [over it not being there at all] but it's neglegable.. until you get many such features and then it starts to become a problem.

Anything which is added to a model which doesn't need to be there will drag the system down.. bolts included. Esp if they have more than the cosmetic threads. [ie real threads]

Btw, multi core processors don't really help too much. SW is working on getting more use from multi processors but they have alot more work to do in this area..

I'm running a dual Quad [8 processors] and while it's faster than my old quad core.. it's not much.. I just can do more things at once [surf, listen to music, read email.. and run SW.. etc]

J

[tnik]

Also, why not use one of those new physics cards gamers are using, seems like a good application for physics intensive engineering software.

Main reason you want to use a workstation card over a gaming card (quadro FX vs. geforce) is because workstation cards are OpenGL while gaming cards are DirectX. Now if solidworks would write the software to use DirectX, we would be able to use gaming cards.

I was using a geforce 8800gs (decent gaming card) and switched to a firegl 5600 and there was a big performance jump.

Going to be building a new comp soon, quad core, with a quadro FX 1700.. can't wait to see how well that does

[guru_florida]

Thats right. I forgot about that. I mentioned the physics card, like PhysX, as a passing thought.

I hear you can convert a geforce 8800 into a quadro FX as its the same hardware and someone out there wrote a reflash program for the video card. A lot of nvidia cards are supported except for the brand newest. I wish I could get realview working, or at least faster redraw with my quadcore 4GB / 1GHz RAM system! It doesnt seem much faster than my old computer.

Main reason you want to use a workstation card over a gaming card (quadro FX vs. geforce) is because workstation cards are OpenGL while gaming cards are DirectX. Now if solidworks would write the software to use DirectX, we would be able to use gaming cards.

I was using a geforce 8800gs (decent gaming card) and switched to a firegl 5600 and there was a big performance jump.

Going to be building a new comp soon, quad core, with a quadro FX 1700.. can't wait to see how well that does

[tnik]

well, you can't convert per se, but you can trick the operating system into thinking that you have a quadro. Now I did alot of google'n around, and I did find a few tutorials on how to make a gamer card into a workstation card. seems the hardware is all the same but they switch a resistor or something like that. but then your taking a chance on really bricking it and being out the few hundred you spent.

if I was trying to build myself a computer (with my own money) and trying to save some money, I might try it.. but for a business, might as well just buy the workstation card you need, especially if you need realview for photo rendering. because even tho you can trick the OS into thinking its a quadro card, its not.

[guru_florida]

I read some more about it too. They modify the drivers with a script to change the PCI id inside the drivers so it thinks the Quadro has the same PCI id as the gamer card.

I dont mind soldering resistors either. I do that regularly with 0402 and 0602 surface mount resistors, the smaller kind. Unfortunately, my brand new 9600GT does not seem to be hackable to a quadro card. I didnt know my solidworks would suffer when I bought a new computer with the latest graphics card, wasnt really aware of workstation/gamer card differences really. I think Solidworks runs faster on my 4 year old computer. Looks like I will have to buy a workstation card.

well, you can't convert per se, but you can trick the operating system into thinking that you have a quadro. Now I did alot of google'n around, and I did find a few tutorials on how to make a gamer card into a workstation card. seems the hardware is all the same but they switch a resistor or something like that. but then your taking a chance on really bricking it and being out the few hundred you spent.

if I was trying to build myself a computer (with my own money) and trying to save some money, I might try it.. but for a business, might as well just buy the workstation card you need, especially if you need realview for photo rendering. because even tho you can trick the OS into thinking its a quadro card, its not.

[tnik]

Not sure if you bought a card yet or not.. but I've been looking at the quadros, and the fx570 is just a bit slower than the fx1700, and there's a $200 price difference.. I've seen the fx570 go for $150 or so, so for a decent card, thats a decent price.