Hi all,

Could someone help me in creating a universal joint for this piece? I have tried creating two independent joints and the computer apparently can't handle it (very slow).

With the universal joint, how do you make the middle piece behave correctly without "locking" the model.

Also, could someone explain how the axis are chosen for the ball joint and univeral joints. As far as I could tell the universal asks for the four endpoints of two joints its representing, but what are the three points that the ball joint asks for?

Thanks!

ujoint00.skp

Hi all,

Does anyone know if for product design a model is usually drawn with 0-thickness walls, where the thickness of the wall is implied. Or does the model typically have inner and outer wall surfaces for all parts? The problem with the latter is that it obviously takes much more space, however, If you are doing a prototype I would imagine that they require that type of precision. Similarly for the number of faces to approximate a circle, not sure how far to take it. Anyone have any insight into what's "good enough" for designing for this purpose?

Thanks.

Thanks, that's clever!

Hi Csava,

It's actually a follow-me that I was using when I took that shot. That was my frustration, it was only performing a follow-me along the edges of the figure. I just erased the face until I had a face that was not locking the path to the edges of the face, not quite sure what was going on there.

Anyways, I've got another question....

I built a "dome" for the top part of a cup, but working on another section I mistakenly erased some faces on the dome and can't undo. How would I patch this up correctly...even taking out the protractor and measuring the angles would be very difficult since it bends in 3d.

I'm almost finished with my first model! Do you think that I can send it to you privately so you can comment on its shortcomings?

Thanks!

Hi guys,

This is probably a dumb question, but I can't get the follow me to work in this situation. I select the face and the path which is approximately perpendicular, but it only chooses one of the face's edges as a path. I'm just trying to do the cover of a cup. Please advise if there's an easier way to do this.

Thanks!

Hi all! Is there a way to increase the strength of the "hand" that appears when you activate the scene in SP? I am trying to do a gear that after moving it half a rotation will slide back in place with some reverse accelaration on the gear. However, this requires a large force to pull against the acceleration in the first place. So I have to zoom way out to acquire a large enough pull force with the hand.

Thanks!

Csava,

Thanks for your help, I am starting to "get" sketchup alot more now. If I could bother you with a few more questions:

1. I am not sure what the best way to export a component to be used in another file. My method currently is creating components in separate files, putting them in sketchup/components directory. However, this way the components layers get imported into the main model as well. Is there a way to import an object without importing its details/layers that would otherwise clutter the main model.

2. When I import a component, I get tick marks in all the corners as shown below. When I select the object the tick marks are replaced by short little lines. Why? Also, any other object I create after this import has these tick marks.

3. You said that there is a way to make follow-me work with two curves. Could you elaborate on this?

Thanks again!

Hi Csava,

I tried the follow-me tool again to no avail (I think the problem was that the two walls were not parallel and was trying to follow two lines. It would be really useful if follow-me worked with more than a single line), so I finished this curve manually connecting each arc.

One thing that is really anoying me is that some faces of the model are shaded differently in the ridge that I formed. (See picture) Do you know why this is the case?

Thanks!
Pedro.

Hi, I'm pretty new with SketchUp and would appreciate any help.

I'm trying to model the curved surface in the attached object. The problem is that the rounding itself is in a curve. My try at doing this is also attached, which would be connecting a series of semicircles shown. I tried using the follow me tool here, but to no avail. Any suggestions on how to accomplish this curvature an easier and more elegant way???

First of all let me say that this is an incredible board, I just started today and you guys are awesome answering questions and battling newbie frustration. Thanks!

My question:

I finally finished setting up a couple of gears in SP. (Initially I had a hard time since the mesh covered the gears, but I solved that by making each tooth individual entities and applying a convex hold to each individual tooth).

The bottom gear of the model works fine individually, however when I start spinning the top gear, or both in conjunction, I get the dreaded BugSplat screen. Just in case its my processor, I've tried changing the display to a bare minimum and pushing the wheel very slowly, however it always seems to crash.

Is this a problem with my model or my machine? Could this be that I am applying convex hulls too liberally, or that there are too levels in my groupings of parts and this is bogging down the animation. (By the way, is the grouping of A, B, C treated the same as grouping A and B, and later C. In other words, should I avoid certain hierarchies of groupings?)

This problem happens with SP1, SP2Beta and SP3.

Thanks in advance!

Try spinning the wheel, it always seems to crash?!