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Lighten THEN hex infill - trying to hex infill a previously lightened area
tom_jelly
Member Posts: 23 ✭✭
I've got a hockey puck shaped part I've hollowed the bottom out of using lighten featurescript function, now I want to do a hex infill with the hex infill featurescript function on the hollowed out part. The hex infill dialog box only will allow me to select the entire part, then just prints a hex pattern over the bottom plane. Is there a way to fill that cavity with hex? Or do I skip the lighten and go direct to hex infill and if so I'm not sure how to do that either as I have a few bolt holes that need bosses inside the infill area...
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Best Answer
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tom_jelly
Member Posts: 23 ✭✭
OK, I got part way there- seems its very sensitive to selection, I was able to make a second part so that the infill portion of the second part with top and bottom wall removed was what I needed to fill the cavity, but then the only way I could get things together was to use a fasten mate in an assembly- not so good. I tried to use derive but could not figure out how to move the derived part into position or do the boolean, presumably it would have to have been positioned correctly before being moved. (I'm a newbie and will need to try to figure out how to do it right rather than that kludge) This will be easy when starting from scratch but working with an existing object not so much. Probably will not affect the 3d print but nice to have the hex to prevent sag over the hollow. *** Would be nifty to be able to specify the z dimension parameters separately like the extrude function.....Hmmmmm...***
Thanks!
Tom
5
Answers
The Hex Infill feature (along with all the other samples provided) include documentation to help you (pasted below).
In your specific requested, the error message relates to an inability to shell the part with the selected wall thickness. If you look at the documentation, you will see that the only prerequisite is an ability to shell the part with the desired wall thickness (you can test this yourself prior to applying the Infill feature just by shelling the part and selecting the 'hollow' option).
A number of people have commented that the feature 'only' creates a sketch - this is true. The default state is with the 'preview' button checked. This enables you to vary and select the desired hex size without waiting for each change to regenerate. Because this operation can involve a large number of operations (several per hex), bear in mind that the regeneration times can be significant and climb with the number of cells. When the Hex layout/density is to your liking, uncheck the preview box.
If you are still having difficulty, please feel free to post a public link to your document and any number of people (myself included - i am the author of the feature), would be more than happy to help you.
Again thank you for your support of Onshape.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/c8579adc39a254c6e163be23/w/41fb1701ac1e0db3fd91d561/e/cd419403242997e62ce9a569
I can only get a projection of hex, in red, on the entire part. (or a hex sketch on a plane tangent to the OD of the part) What I desire is to fill in the pocket with hex, after the cavity has been removed. Not sure if this is what your feature has been designed to do, maybe that is why I am having a problem? I don't seem to be able to select an area (the cavity) to apply the infill to...
thanks so much for sharing the feature, apologies for my inability to figure out how to do this...https://cad.onshape.com/documents/c8579adc39a254c6e163be23/w/41fb1701ac1e0db3fd91d561/e/cd419403242997e62ce9a569
tom
The feature is written to hollow out a part for 3D printing.
For that reason, the cell alignment is (as currently written) aligned with the Z axis.
To work with your part, i used transform-by-mate-connector to position and orient the part more suitably.
This first example shows that this custom feature does work with your part (even though it doesn't sound like it's exactly what you're looking for.
Moving on - to get (what i think) you're looking for, takes a few more features and a little bit of understanding about what's going on.
I created a second (separate) part that represents the volume you actually want to create the infill for. After applying the custom feature, i simply cut off the top and booleaned the two parts together.
Both of these examples are in this public document for you to play with.
I hope this helps and i am happy to answer any questions.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/5751e2aae4b053149a3d94f8/w/0cd4db8ed33a9d2f29f4c149/e/dda08f946b5dd68f744b3a6e
Thanks!
Tom
The second part i referred to was created in the same part studio (although it could have been created in any part studio). One of the main benefits of Onshape is this parts studio concept that can create any number of inter-related parts. There is no need to make an assembly. If you look at the document i shared you can see how i did this.
If you did create the second part in an alternate part-studio, you would again likely need to use transform-by-mate-connector - please ask if you do not understand how this works.
I hope this helps - Philip . . .