Loft feature - keep cross section

jo_gr

Hi,

Here is a link to a little project of mine. As you can see in the picture I would like to use the loft feature to make a solid connection between two circles (yellow part). How can I make sure that the cross section keeps the same and doesn´t shrink in the middle part?

Thank you in advance!

John_P_Desilets

@jo_gr Thanks! I see that you already used the path option in previous operations. Nice!  I think you might have better luck using the sweep feature with 3D fit splines. I made a quick example off of your document. Let us know how you make out!

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/e000f13712bc34b9c47a4737/w/0cbc8d6d95b97a880e36d8ad/e/5f4bd6c473a0500b02c72886

EvanReese

This one just seemed fun so I had to give it a go. I remembered a hose routing custom feature by @sebastian_glanzner that seemed perfect, especially since your document is called "water outlet". This way you don't have to create fit splines, or cross sections to sweep, and you get extra info about your hose specs. I also used my Freeform Spline feature to define the main path for all of the hoses, so you can edit like this which is kind of satisfying (the "Final" button is active"). Here's a link to my document
 

John_P_Desilets

@jo_gr Is it possible to share as public? This way we can copy and test a few different workflows. 

You can do this a few different ways. If you create a 3D spline between the start and end profiles you can use the "path" option in the loft feature. You can also use the sweep feature to ensure a constant cross section. 

jo_gr

Hi John,

sure! I have just shared it as public.

Thanks for sharing your ideas. I find it somehow difficult to create such a 3d spline. I´d appreciate any help with that!

John_P_Desilets

@jo_gr Thanks! I see that you already used the path option in previous operations. Nice!  I think you might have better luck using the sweep feature with 3D fit splines. I made a quick example off of your document. Let us know how you make out!

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/e000f13712bc34b9c47a4737/w/0cbc8d6d95b97a880e36d8ad/e/5f4bd6c473a0500b02c72886

EvanReese

This one just seemed fun so I had to give it a go. I remembered a hose routing custom feature by @sebastian_glanzner that seemed perfect, especially since your document is called "water outlet". This way you don't have to create fit splines, or cross sections to sweep, and you get extra info about your hose specs. I also used my Freeform Spline feature to define the main path for all of the hoses, so you can edit like this which is kind of satisfying (the "Final" button is active"). Here's a link to my document
 

sebastian_glanzner

@Evan_Reese
That is awesome, nice solution! 

leonid_raiz

@jo_gr looking at you picture it seems like the feature lofts between points of circles that are shifted from each other thus making a twisted, hypothetical surface. You may try to fix that by adding one match connection and dragging point on one of the circles to minimize the n 

jo_gr

Hey John and Evan, thank you both for your ideas. I was able to improve my Cad files and came up with these two options.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/3bb2b69cbaf47f079e60d4d0/w/9d521d08fedd81eb641c35bb/e/23ee9afa16878fd8dd0b75af

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/3bb2b69cbaf47f079e60d4d0/w/9d521d08fedd81eb641c35bb/e/f137cba4484cd981fa1eedde

@Evan_Reese : This feature looks pretty cool, I haven´t tried it yet but I may give it a try this week. Thanks!:)