Scalable DC with 'holes' eg 19" Rack Rail
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Hi All,
Firstly: noob warning
Hope I'm not belabouring a previous topic. My searches & browsing of this list didn't show anything I could recognise as similar to what I'm trying to do...
Attached is my work-in-progress - a so-called Z-rail for computer racks which is intended to scale in the Z direction and include the holes.
The issue is that the outlines of the holes appear, but the internal faces won't automatically disappear. The hole component has the 'cutout' attribute set, but I suspect this only works on a single face whereas I need it to 'push though' to both sides of the base rail when it's drawn.
I've seen the orthogonal-push method in the Ruby API but I'm not sure how to go about connecting-to/triggering it from the DC.
Any advice appreciated.
Chris.
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i think you should start from scratch and make you're geometry so the holes are through before you start grouping and making components. check your outliner the whole things a big mess, your "holes" aren't even inside the component4 which is the bracket itself. also the holes component... anyway i could go on, but i say start over keep it simple. make a model of a single three HOLE section first, don't worry about components. then make it dynamic. keep it simple.
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maybe you could make three seperate groups like this:
then make that into a component and copy the sections on scaling. as far as i can figure you can't cause a hole in one group or component to affect another. you would need to write a ruby script for that.
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Thanks for the reply!
OK, I started again and attached is the latest incarnation. It's close, but it'd be good to get rid of the joins between copies.
Note that the hole spacing is not uniform - according to the spec for 19" racks, they have to be spaced as shown.
My initial idea was that the base rail (with no holes) could just scale and the holes would be repeated with the hope that they'd "punch" through the rail material
Ultimately it would be good to be able to scale the component so it truncates at the midpoint between any pair of holes - pipe dream perhaps?
Cheers,
Chris.
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i understand the spacing on these rails, i used to design cabinets for a manufacturing company. they're alot easier to space the holes in solidworks with dynamic equations.
if you open your components then select all the top and bottom edges and hide them you won't have seems between segments.
as far as the spacing using three sections you may be able to have example A B C, where A is the odd spaced one. now as you scale every 5/8 of an inch you copy one part.. so A scale more adds B .... back to a again. -
Thx for all yr help Xrok1.
Your suggestions are all good. The hidden lines occurred to me also between when I posted & saw your reply.
The way I see it I've got a couple of options, but I'm liking the idea of the two different hole spacings as sub-components...
Look out for the finished version in the 3D warehouse!
Cheers,
Chris.
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