Fit to be tied!
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Hi everyone
I am an inventor of electronic drum instruments, and I used Sketchup for almost all of my Patent drawings. I am trying to manufacture some of my instruments, so I bought Sketchup Pro thinking that I could produce DXF or DWG files for CNC machining. I have been struggling with it for three days now, and all of my manufacturers are fed up with me sending them fatally flawed files. If any of you have done 3D DXF I am desperate for some advice. Please assume I'm pretty lame with all of this (you will be right). I will attach some files, and thanks in advance!steele teeth.pdf
steel teeth final.skpMark
Drumagination, Inc.P.S. You can see me and my drum ideas at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XezG628QXp8PPS. If anyone knows a good CNC machining shop, I'd appreciate a link.
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first of all you should be working at least 10x bigger scale then just give the manufacturer the radius and he'll scale it for himself.
but for now just get all your faces in the right direction (purple ones are backwards) and remove the inner faces where the arrow points. i would personally just make 1 segment (cog, tooth, whatever) make sure its good then copy/rotate the rest.
but anyway clean it up, repost it, then we'll take another look.
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XROC1
I appreciate your willingness to help me, but I have 8 more parts of this instrument plus four more designs to produce. The main problem is that I have no way of seeing if my work is CNC worthy without bothering my manufacturers. I'm slammed for time, so I'll find another way to get files made besides using Sketchup Pro.
Thanks again!
Mark
Drumagination, Inc. -
i'm trying to show you how to do it properly, if you wanted someone to do it for you you should ask. maybe someone will, but it won't help next time.
one more tip. you can export to dwg then reimport to SU you'll see the mess (really try it, i did with your model) i'm pretty sure most of your problem is your small dimensions (SU doesn't work well with these) that's why i suggested working bigger then scaling down.here i copied and scaled one up, exported as dwg then imported back in. see the problems? the small original one is missing quite a few faces specially around the center... the big ones not perfect but i imagine it could be easily tweaked.
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Your almost there, Mark. I had a go at cleaning it up.
- Scale up by 10 or 100 times.
- There was a missing Face inside - need to hide the back face and have a look inside.
- There was some superfluous geometry around the center hole on the back side.
- Finally, oriented all the faces.
- Scale down.
- Export.
Did you notice the export options available? Maybe there is something there that is causing problems?
But as I said, the model was nearly "correct" and only needed a few minutes cleanup.
If this model works, I'm glad to help with your other files if it would help meet your deadline.
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teach a man to fish?
nice try. this is what the dwg re-imported looks like! i don't think any manufacturer has time for this crap.
if you serious and making money with your stuff buy a proper program to do this stuff for manufacture. yoiu need a solid modeler not a poly modeler. there are lots out there, some cheeper than SU (not the free version of course
).
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But that's a SketchUp size limitation. It has nothing whatsoever to do with how the file will get imported in a cad program.
This is how my import looks in SketchUp. Imported in Feet, scaled to inches.
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touche!
@unknownuser said:
But that's a SketchUp size limitation.
but that's what i mentioned earlier and you failed to reiterate.
it is in fact the key point that Drumagination needs to know. -
My turn to be
- I did scale up to make the repairs, and I can't explain why I left that critical step out because it's the only way to get Su to close the holes. But I did scale back to real-word dimension before exporting. -
i think this is one of those cases where you and i care more about this than the one who posed the question.
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Well, guys:
It is not a total loss. You actually reinforced a well worn lesson on model creation in the matter of scaling up for modeling and scaling down for export, and I am not the only viewer. And thanks. -
@xrok1 said:
teach a man to fish?
nice try. this is what the dwg re-imported looks like! i don't think any manufacturer has time for this crap.
if you serious and making money with your stuff buy a proper program to do this stuff for manufacture. yoiu need a solid modeler not a poly modeler. there are lots out there, some cheeper than SU (not the free version of course ).xrok1
You are exactly right, it is crap and you and Jim are kind souls for trying to help me on this. I have 3 problems that can't be fixed:- Sketchup Pro runs a check when I create a dxf file and every time it tells me everything is OK. It isn't. It would be cool if it told me what's wrong, suggested fixes (faces for example) and better yet, had a click to fix option. But that's wishful thinking.
- I can't check my work with the end user (CNC metal cutters) without constantly pestering them.
- I have come across too many little "problems" that will take too much of my time. Like Sketchup has issues working with small pieces....new to me and discovered by accident.
Xrok said it best when he told me to get another solid modeler, which is what I will do. Any recommendations?
Again, I wanted to thank you guys for taking the time to try to help. I will ask for a refund tomorrow.
Mark
Drumagination, Inc. -
@drumagination said:
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Xrok said it best when he told me to get another solid modeler, which is what I will do. Any recommendations?You could try Alibre- only $97 for the basic package.
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download Moi3D demo http://moi3d.com/download.htm $295 when ver2 is released in the next month or so.
it really depends how much you can spend. i personally prefer solidworks but at $3500
i think Alibre design is a very solid choice, for around $500 its about %90 of what Solidworks is! that would have to be my #1 pick for a under $1000 budget. -
Hmm, I wonder how his "fishing" trip is going.
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