Curly cable construction? Coil along path

Swissmountain

Hello Sketchup hero ,

I am designing a product and need to equip it with a curly cable, like on the old rotary phones.

How can I create a helix along a curve? Is there a ruby that does that, similar to drawhelix13?

Thank you for your time...

Daniel S

You can use Chris Fullmer´s Shape Bender:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=18210

First make a helix and bend it to a curve.
Quick Example:

Daniel S

Swissmountain

Thanks a million Daniel!!!

rpaul

I tried this method, but the cross-section of the coil gets squished. Is there a method to preserve the profile of the coil and ONLY adjust the space between? This is the way slinkies and other springs work.

Chris Fullmer

Try making a single line coil, instead of tube coil. If you have just a single line, then you could bend it, then use the follow me tool to make it into a perfect tube after the bending has been done.

Chris

Chris Fullmer

I had a few minutes so I made some images that show what I mean.

This shows the 2 ways to do it that I describe above. The top one is just a single coiled edge. So just the single edge will be bent around curve. The lower one has already made a coiled tube and then bends it and will deform the tube geometry.
sb pre.jpg

This shows the version where the tube is bent, there by deforming the geometry.
sb bad.jpg

This is the outomce of bending the plain edges, then using a circle and follow me, after the plain edges have been bent. No weird deformation (I kind of stretched out the coil a little more than I meant to - oops!)
sb good.jpg

Chris

Swissmountain

Hey guys,
thanks for all the input, it's greatly appreciated! Chris: very good point about extruding along the helix instead of deforming the tube...
I'm correcting my model with that new method. ...Love you all!

rpaul

Thanks much Chris for the insight. Are you using helix13.rb for coil creation or some other process? Helix13 always creates the helix at the origin.

Chris Fullmer

I did it by hand. I just made one full coil, then copied and pasted it to make a full series of coils. I've never tried any of the helix rubies. They do seem useful though,

Chris