Honeycomb pattern on a curved surface (Grid Extrude impossible).

Answers

• GregBrown Member, Onshape Employees, csevp, pcbaevp Posts: 305

  May 15

  It's not 100% clear what your intent is, but I'm assuming you want a honeycomb pattern on the inside surface of the Tube Hood? Do you want it a constant offset in from the inside surface? Do you want this to be extruded in a single direction (moldable) with draft? Are you 3D printing it? There are a lot of techniques you can use that will likely involve projection of curves, offsetting of faces, splitting of faces, splitting of bodies with offset surface, thickening, draft, etc

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• whiteshirt Member Posts: 6 ✭

  May 15

  Apologies for not being the clearest - English is not my first language.

  This is a 3D print, and I need it to be the lightest possible - which is why I wanted to have the honeycomb pattern all over the model. So I would like the "Tube Hood" to also have the same honeycomb pattern like the Tube Base, so that the hexagonal openings go through the entirety of the walls o.

  The wall is currently at 2mm, and after experimenting with some prints, I will probably take it down to 1.25, for both the Tube Hood and the Tube Base.

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• _anton Member, Onshape Employees Posts: 440

  May 15 edited May 15

  For what it's worth, if you're using a filament printer, the honeycomb might not be the approach if you want to reduce weight (would look cool, though). Export your Tube Base part both with the honeycomb and without. Compare what your slicer says about how much material it'll use. There might not be as much difference as you'd expect because a solid part's interior will be infill and air, while the honeycomb forces walls everywhere. It also might take much longer to print.

  Sparser infill or thinner walls and top/bottom layers is the easier way to limit mass, at the cost of some strength and surface finish.

  (Ignore if you're using a resin printer - there, the honeycomb really would help.)

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• whiteshirt Member Posts: 6 ✭

  May 16

  I've tried slicer settings (FDM printer) - but strength suffers. This is a part that will be subjected to torsional forces and as such strength is paramount while decreasing weight.

  I was driven to this approach while looking at airless ping pong balls.

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• EvanReese Member, Mentor Posts: 2,366 ✭✭✭✭✭

  May 16 Answer ✓

  I wrote Grid Extrude and let the record reflect that I agree with @_anton here and that a slicer-side solution feels better to me and I do not condone making this many holes for performance reasons… but here's a way to do it lol. Your regeneration time is now over 100 seconds. Godspeed.

  

  Evan Reese
  The Onsherpa | Reach peak Onshape productivity
  www.theonsherpa.com

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• whiteshirt Member Posts: 6 ✭

  2:57PM

  Godspeed indeed. :D

  Thank you - I will study and try to understand this approach. May ask more questions in the future. :)

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• MDesign Member Posts: 811 ✭✭✭

  3:42PM

  

  Anytime you plan on doing repetitive features like this on a part, its good practice to take the time to model in halves, quarters, eighths,. etc.

  Doing it like this will save boatloads of regen time. I cheated on this one just to make the point by splitting it in quarters just before the attractor pattern. and then mirrored twice after attractor pattern and the regen time came in at 49s. If its modeled with this intent from the beginning it probably would save a bit more time too. although not terribly significant relative to the current regen time.

  I had 99 seconds before the split/mirror mods. Now its 49 seconds. Nearly cut in half. So as you can see, it can be well worth the time to plan ahead.

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