Wrap and Pattern

SOLIDWORKS How To Questions
1

I was asked to make this part for a laser cutting demonstration. The result is close enough, but I got some trouble with the Wrap Feature. I want to be able to control the angle, the distance and radius of offsets more freely. One way I found is to make the Linear Pattern in one sketch, then create another sketch in the same plane and Convert Entities, then Offset+Wrap. But I get problems with the Select Chain and Offset when changing the Linear Pattern value; one way to solve this is making another sketch and converting everything again. LOL

I think using sketch is not the best approach for this, but I couldn’t make it with features…
How would you do it? Is there a way to make just one Wrap and Pattern it around?

I uploaded one file with the method I explained and another after changing the Linear Pattern value.
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Double Sketch2.SLDPRT (32.9 MB)
Double Sketch.SLDPRT (24.8 MB)

2

You seem to have done it with the wrap. The only thing I’d add to that is to just do 360 degrees of it and then pattern it along the axis.

3

So it’s Friday and I’m really unmotivated so I decided to play with this for a bit. What I came up with was/Is a bit sloppy but maybe something you can use.

instead of wrapping the entire thing I wrapped one instance. I placed a helix in a circle and extruded the tube from that sketch (Lots of ways to do this and what I did was probably one of the worst ways :slight_smile: ). The sketch of the wrap/cut is calculated based on the information from the helix. Alter the OD, Pitch etc and the angle in the sketch changes to match.

I then did a curve pattern feature and based the instance spread on the sketch. I’m assuming that I was running into a ZTG issue if I used the exact measurement because the pattern failed, but by subtracting .0001 from the instance spread it seemed to work.

I messed with it a bit, changed pitches a couple times, and it rebuilt with the change…but I suspect at some point it’s will explode.
Part1.SLDPRT (3.16 MB)
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Edit To add: I didn’t do anything with the array count. But if you wanted it to have a certain number or cover a certain distance I’m sure you could calculate the number in the array with another equation and have the array count equal to that. For more radical changes it does explode. I have been able to fix most of it by changing the “-.0001” to a larger number.

4

You mean using Linear Pattern? That way would be difficult to adjust the angle because the beginning and the end of the wrap wont match easily, no?

Interesting solution, thank you ^^