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Plane tangent to cylindrical surface

charles_easter
charles_easter Member Posts: 1 ✭
in Community Support
In SW I often create a plane tangent to a cylindrical surface in order to cut keyways or pockest etc. Doing it this way maintains the depth irrespective of any changes to the cylindrical diameter. Any ideas how this can be done with OnShape?
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Answers

  • brucebartlett
    brucebartlett Member, OS Professional, Mentor, User Group Leader Posts: 2,148 PRO
    Only way I can see is with a sketch perpendicular to the cylinder. In the sketch draw a line from the centre of the cylinder to the surface, constrain ends to the cylinder surface and the centre, set angle as desired. Then use the line point plane. image
    Engineer ı Product Designer ı Onshape Consulting Partner
    Twitter: @onshapetricks  & @babart1977   
  • thomas_5
    thomas_5 Member Posts: 5 ✭
    That technique can be very effective if you include dimensional controls on the sketch. It's one I frequently use even when I have a tangent/parallel solution. That way I don't have to construct a plane to be parallel (or normal to) or be locked in alignment to an origin plane.
  • andrew_troup
    andrew_troup Member, Mentor Posts: 1,585 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited May 2015
    @thomas_5: by "dimensional controls on the sketch", do you mean control of the angle of the line? 
  • brucebartlett
    brucebartlett Member, OS Professional, Mentor, User Group Leader Posts: 2,148 PRO
    edited May 2015
    Just a few more tips. To control the angle of the line delete the default horizontal constraint (tick the show constraints check box to view all constraints or just hover over the line to awaken constraints then find the one you want to delete) when the line turns blue it should be free to rotate. In Onshape you can reference dimensions to planes so by turning the right plane on I can add an angle dimension off this. image
    Engineer ı Product Designer ı Onshape Consulting Partner
    Twitter: @onshapetricks  & @babart1977   
  • lougallo
    lougallo Member, Moderator, Onshape Employees, Developers, csevp, pcbaevp Posts: 2,020 image
    Here is a tangent plane FeatureScript if you want to use it: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/68455a5d522e81cd65a35211/w/deb148ff386c8a32e35e7d65/e/929b7ca8aeee162bb0f129d9
    Lou Gallo
    Sr. Director of Product Definition. UX and Support

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