Making your own race parts

True, true.

Man I wish I had the space for a CNC mill. And the money for one. And the skill and knowledge to operate it.

 

What's the stepover on your ball tool?

 

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That was .01 with a 1/4 ball. Its just a test piece so I didn't go too crazy.

 

got the small one done today

 

I can operate one just no time at all.

 

Hey grouchy, I see you're using CATIA, always good to see more users. Been using it for my day job for quite a while now, if you have any questions feel free to pm me.

 

Never used CATIA, have only used Pro/E and Solidworks. How does it compare?

 

Thanks, that was what I was using for my computer graphics course last semester. In Purdue's electric racing team now I use Solidworks. In the combustion racing team last year I used Creo and in high school I used Inventor. So tons of relearning where to find which buttons haha

I haven't used Solidworks enough to give a good comparison. However, I do enjoy using CATIA.

 

The biggest difference between solidworks and CATIA is the part tree structure. Solidworks has a linear tree which means you can't use one of the steps for mulitple different operations and can't copy and paste geometry within a part (as far as I know). CATIA on the other hand has a non linear tree, you can organize it and re-use geometry at will. This makes CATIA extremely powerful, however it also can make it extremely confusing trying to diagnose a model done by someone else. There are a million ways to do the same thing in CATIA, however most ways are not robust.

That's longwinded enough, but yeah I have probably 10,000 hours or more in CATIA. If you have any questions I can likely answer it.

 

A little inspiration for today

 

The swing arm looks out of place.

 

It does. They should match.

 

Form follows function.

 

You can in Solidworks, but it's not really something that is level 101. I do it either by creating separate blocks or by structuring a master file with all my sketches, surfaces, etc... I've been a Solidworks user for 11 years now, so I can't say I'm up to speed on what is current with the other systems. Prior to that, I learned on Pro-E (2001 and later wildfire circa 2004) and later I-DEAS before it was integrated into NX. All the FSAE parts that I posted earlier were designed and analyzed using I-DEAS. It was clunky, but pretty powerful (at the time) once a person got over the learning curve.

 

I'm not sure if I like it or want to set it on fire...

 

Ah that makes sense, I'm pretty basic in solidworks as every job I have had uses catia. Still though that sounds like a pain to have a master file that you save as different items. Is there much multi part linking? In catia I can publish elements and paste them with a link into another part that always updates.

 

Yes, linking is pretty straightforward. I don't save the masterfile a bunch of different times (although that does work if someone would like to do it that way). I usually put simple things (basic sketches, blocks, standard geometry, surfaces, etc...) in a masterfile and then import that into each part file when starting. Sometimes I'll even model almost complete assemblies in the master, when appropriate, and just do the finishing operations in the part file. Then, each part in an assembly automatically references back to the master, linking any changes across an assembly. It sounds much more complicated than it really is.

 

That would be really interesting to see firsthand and compare to catia. Seems like I may have misunderestimated solidworks!