How to convert 3D tube body into measurements...

Hello,

I am very new to CAD design and have designed a 3 dimensional tube, for a race car subframe, and am having a very hard time transfering the design measurements into real and useable information to bend the metal.

I know how to get the dimensional information from each bend angle, but I do not know how to get the rotational angle from 1 bend to the next.

bend 1 is 151.2 deg (see photo 165602)

Bend 2 is 142 deg (see photo 165620)

but the part itself is 3 dimensional which requires the tube to be rotated (see photo 165718)

 So my question is, How would I find the degree of rotation for the tube for the second bend?

Thanks for any insight.

Hey Tyler

The best way to approach this is you want to think as if you're looking directly down the tube between the two bends and see it as a 2D image. I've found the easiest solution is to use the "Plane Along Path" function under the "Construct" menu, which will allow you to create a construction plane anywhere along an edge or in my example case, the original sketch path used to make the tube.

Once you have this, you can create a sketch on that plane which will have you looking directly down the tube, you can then project the tube body or the original sketch on that 2D plane and use the "Dimension" tool to show a driven dimension of the angle between the two bent tube sections.

When getting reference dimensions for a job, I find it easier to then finish the sketch and view it in a 3D manner, as in my last screenshot. You will need to right click the sketch in the browser menu and select "Show Sketch Dimension" to be able to view it. As in my example, after the first bend, the tube would need to be rotated 99.2° before completing the second bend.

Hope this helps.

DUDE!

I was able to recreate your worked example.

I attached a screen grab of what my version of your sketch turned out to be with the basic reference information.

For some reason, when I try it on mine, I am struggling to get the rotation still. Any ideas?

If you want to export your file as a .f3d and post it here, I'd be happy to have a look and see if I can get a solution for you.

Thanks Caleb!

Here is what I was able to figure out. If I go a segment above and a segment below the plane, it works, but I question the accuracy.

Let me know what you find out

Ok, it took a bit to find the issue here and to be honest I'm not 100% on what the original problem was caused by. Looking at the body of the pipe, I noticed extra segments on the bends that shouldn't be there, almost like the pipe was bending back the opposite way a fraction before the actual bend. I can't see a reason for this in the original sketch. The big giveaway that it wasn't right was in the angle sketch, the lines from each bent segment should intersect at the center of the pipe you're looking down. I attached screenshots of the errors I found, if you could screen record how you created the original sketch, I may be able to pinpoint where the error comes from.

I ended up recreating that sketch segment using points off the original and had no errors creating a pipe and getting an accurate angle. As you can see in the last screenshot, your original angle was only off by .08°, but if you're like me, you want every measurement to be as accurate as possible.

Hope this helps in some way and if I can be of any further help, let me know!

I would have never found the extra bend segments!

I did the original drawing over the past year or so, and I am sure there may have been some issues with my prior knowledge of designing, and my current understanding on the proper systematic process.

I will work on getting this pipe bent up in a test run and let you know how it works out!