Selcting mulitple entities/tools for the Split command or using surfaces with Boolean features.

clayton_ertley

With CAD in general I mostly design Rubik's puzzles among other mechanical things.

The way I do this is to use a revolve a sketch profile about the origin of the shape I am using. It requires an invariable use of 5-50 surface bodies. This can be extremely labor intensive as I am forced to do multiple split operations and that is made even harder by that face that I have to manually select the bodies to be split which get difficult as I progress( a standard 3x3x3 Rubik's 12 splits before it is completed). Currently in OnShape we can select multiple bodies to be split, but only one tool/plane/surface.

I have attached an image to display a simple version of my problem.

I am a Rhino and Solidworks user. Respectively you can use surfaces in Boolean operations and multiple surfaces AND bodies.

I feel like the development team already has a lot on their plate at the moment that makes me feel a little guilty, but I had to suggest this. Great work so far guys! As soon as I finish moving into my new place in the coming month or so I plan to pay for the pro account in order to help with your guys funding.

I wish you the best and thanks for reading my suggestion!

-Clay

3dcad

Maybe I'm missing something here but why not use one small cube and part pattern?

clayton_ertley

I"m not completely sure I understand you. How would a small cube be any different the the one I have. I do a radial pattern around the appropriate axis to create the 6(in this case) surface profiles, but in order to actually make the individual pieces I end up doing 6 splits.
In every other cad program I preform on 1 split operation.

Maybe you could elaborate on your suggestion?

3dcad

This is what I meant, see shared document (tab: Rubik (clayton)):
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/d29ff8e74a0f49809e533f48/w/48fedb2064cc4f30a27ee6e8/e/d2225c9e50db4df088eb880d

clayton_ertley

I cannot do that because what I am making is MUCH MUCH more complicated than just blocks.

Here is the finished product(view and comment only):
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/6a7c64af7a8c4b8e874512c5/w/f9551adca811463680078e88/e/8d37876fc9c64539a52db547

andrew_troup

 Boy, that would be fun to send back in time, to haunt the dreams of a pre-CNC-era toolmaker.

I think they would have managed OK to machine up a prototype, but making female tooling, now THAT would have been a serious challenge.

Maybe doable on a manual Deckel, with ALL the bells and whistles...

clayton_ertley

I would never mill a twisty puzzle. 3d printing the whole puzzle or printing the master pieces then molding and casting.

brucebartlett

@andrew_troup ahh the good old days of toolmaking. The things the that could be made with a lathe, a pentagraph, a drill press, a chisel, a file and some elbow grease. All those skills will soon be a things of the past with 3d printing.

@clayton_ertley great suggestion on using multiple tools, add it in as feedback. I can see MOTW coming up with that doc (place that on as a prefix for @lougallo to see when choosing model of the week contestants). Its a very long feature, how do you go navigating it?

andrew_troup

clayton_ertley said:

I would never mill a twisty puzzle. 3d printing the whole puzzle or printing the master pieces then molding and casting.

Just as well you weren't designing them forty years ago, then !

clayton_ertley

brucebartlett said:

@andrew_troup ahh the good old days of toolmaking. The things the that could be made with a lathe, a pentagraph, a drill press, a chisel, a file and some elbow grease. All those skills will soon be a things of the past with 3d printing.

@clayton_ertley great suggestion on using multiple tools, add it in as feedback. I can see MOTW coming up with that doc (place that on as a prefix for @lougallo to see when choosing model of the week contestants). Its a very long feature, how do you go navigating it?

Do you mean navigating the long feature list? Well it Solidworks you can create new folder to help organize but with OnS I have just been making these for so long I have a pretty good idea where everything is. Building every puzzle in the same order helps. I was thinking of going for MOTW but I cannot decide between 3 puzzles that I have, though I guess for the more unfamiliar crowd, the standard 3x3x3 will be familiar to everyone.

brucebartlett

Yes I meant feature list. I made a copy to do a roll back and see how each step was done. Nice job.

clayton_ertley

brucebartlett said:

Yes I meant feature list. I made a copy to do a roll back and see how each step was done. Nice job.

Thanks. If you like this stuff just wait until you become familiar with jumbling.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/5283d704088a4043bf84dd0d/w/40d246ccad6e4cee8aa77bd5/e/4eab66addd4e4cdeaf8475c4

If you want to see what the jumbling part, this guy explains it well enough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TagZmrnHmJQ

3dcad

Nice, I thought I was missing something on my simple approach but I'm glad now we know something of the inner workings of Rubik's cube

christopher_owens

Thanks for showing me how one can share their workspace! Simple as "Copy and Paste" the  browser link! Sweet!