Drawing a centrifugal pump volute

jacbk612

OK, I got some ideas I am exploring, let's see if we can get some help to flesh it out.

jacbk612

So I think there is a possibility by using fredo's curviloft using arcs as the loft path. I have included a sequence of skp images, hopefully everyone can see these.

The idea is that the start and stop part of the loft could be made to intersect and then I could run a cylinder through the center of the whole thing and have my volute.

Right now the top part is being done with the last part of the loft line as a bezier and it looks a bit squished, don't know if I am doing something wrong.

Jacques

volute-test1.skp

volute-test2.skp

volute-test3.skp

jacbk612

this doesn't look like the best way to display an image maybe I should of made a jpg?

jacbk612

jpg files atached

Futurepast

Is this what you want? I use d Cris Fulmers bending tool to bend a flat impeller around the spiral from the vid above, and just rotated a few times. Oh I see you want the tube. Should bend the same way?

Just checked yes it works but you have to "explode" the spiral for Cris's tool to work

Untitled.skp

mac1

@futurepast said:

Is this what you want? I use d Cris Fulmers bending tool to bend a flat impeller around the spiral from the vid above, and just rotated a few times. Oh I see you want the tube. Should bend the same way?

Just checked yes it works but you have to "explode" the spiral for Cris's tool to work

Have you looked at the link provided above? The draw metal plugin lets you draw it no time or does it not work as shown

Futurepast

I guess you are right lol I didn't play with any paramaters but I think it can do what he wants by changing the diamiters at each end

Untitled.skp

Futurepast

@mac1 said:

@futurepast said:

Is this what you want? I use d Cris Fulmers bending tool to bend a flat impeller around the spiral from the vid above, and just rotated a few times. Oh I see you want the tube. Should bend the same way?

Just checked yes it works but you have to "explode" the spiral for Cris's tool to work

Have you looked at the link provided above? The draw metal plugin lets you draw it no time or does it not work as shown

You create just the spiral and then you have to ungroup it for cris's tool to work. The part gets bent around the spiral

mac1

@futurepast said:

@mac1 said:

@futurepast said:

Is this what you want? I use d Cris Fulmers bending tool to bend a flat impeller around the spiral from the vid above, and just rotated a few times. Oh I see you want the tube. Should bend the same way?

Just checked yes it works but you have to "explode" the spiral for Cris's tool to work

Have you looked at the link provided above? The draw metal plugin lets you draw it no time or does it not work as shown

You create just the spiral and then you have to ungroup it for cris's tool to work. The part gets bent around the spiral

Sorry I did not make myself very clear or did not understand your post.
The link I was referring was the one I posted early in the thread. It is a youtube video showing how to draw the 3d involoute using the draw metal plugin and does not use the shape bender. The plugin gives you the specific path profile and you can use the FAK to draw the profile you want. Here is the link for it http://www.drawmetal.com/download

jacbk612

Right, here's a better version of this,I am just using curviloft and arcs. I will get the proper representation of a volute curve and raw that loft properly, then it just needs to be intersected at the top, and a cylinder punched through.

Jacques

mac1

@jacbk612 said:

Right, here's a better version of this,I am just using curviloft and arcs. I will get the proper representation of a volute curve and raw that loft properly, then it just needs to be intersected at the top, and a cylinder punched through.

Jacques

This is what you can get using the draw metal plugin. The plugin also has a taper maker but have not tried that yet.
Need for you to define the dimensions as well as the desired extruded cross section profiles

jeff hammond

@jacbk612 said:

Right, here's a better version of this,I am just using curviloft

right.. curviloft is the correct tool to use.. but do it like this instead..

[edit].. well.. what p just said before me.. lol..
sorry.. i'll leave this up for the visuals..

Box

Here's a five minute version done with Curve Maker and Taper Maker and all else standard tools. I think that's the sort of general shape you want.

Took longer to animate than to draw.

mac1

Update, 6 dia, no eye, taper round .5 to .25". 1 turn h=3"
Waiting on dimensions and taper cross section ( selection limited to round, rect, diamond,>.....

pbacot

If the taper is geometric along the length, I found using Curviloft "create loft junctions along a given path" worked in one process.

I used BZ Toolbar curves uniform B- spline (though other ways should work), Chris Fullmer Perpendicular Face tools to put a circle on each end, and curviloft- using just a beginning and ending circle. Just an idea if it works for you.