[guido_kp]

hi was wondering how to cut ramps into a flange i drew in autocad. the ramps need to be the three outer wings of the circle. its a lid for a twist lock flange made of acrylic. when you twist it down the ramps put pressure on an oring and make a water tight seal. im pretty green at acad still. ive extruded it out to the size it needs to be - .25" but cant figure out how to ramp it. i'll attach the dxf so you can see it and a picture of what i am trying to accomplish.

[ger21]

You want to solid model it? In 2007, you can loft it. In older versions, I'd model it with a mesh and download a mesh to solid lisp from the web to convert it to a solid.

[guido_kp]

well i guess i should say that i am very green at acad. maybe you can walk me thru it. i have 07 version.

[ger21]

OK, lofting doesn't work. Use the helix command to draw the top 2 edges of the ramp. Set surftab to a high number (I used 100) and create a ruled surface using the helix's. Then download a Mesh to solid lisp to convert the Mesh to a solid. I used this one, but it didn't seem to work right. I had to keep hitting enter for it to finish. http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1408

A tabulated surface might be better. I attached a file with all 3 parts, helix, surface and solid for you to look at. It's very likely that this will be way over your head.

There might be a better way, but I don't have time to play around with it any more.

[guido_kp]

thanks for looking at it ger, i appreciate your time. you are correct in that it is over my head but i will just have to wrap my head around it for awhile. i'll let you know how it goes.

[guido_kp]

ok so now i've draw it...what CAM software will cut it out? i have cambam and tried the ac2gc macro but they dont seem to work.. any suggestions?

[guido_kp]

how can i export this as an stl? gives the error of not being "in the positve xyz octant"

[guido_kp]

oops heres the file

[ger21]

Here you go

[guido_kp]

Here you go

thank you, but i guess i am just so thick skulled i still dont see how you did it. i enter the box command and set it to 0,0,0 but that only gets half the drawing inside the cube. so i still get that positve xyz octant error. i can export the solid from your attached file, though. thank you. what am i doing wrong with drawing the cube?

[ger21]

You're not drawing it in the correct place. If you look at the drawing I posted from a top, side and front view, you'll see that one corner is at 0,0,0, and the other is in the positive direction of all the axis.
You could also draw 3 construction lines through 0,0,0. One along the X, Y, and Z axis. From the top view, the part should be in the top right quadrant. From the front view, it should also be in the top right quadrant. And if you do a right side view, once again it should be in the top right quadrant.

Let me know if you still don't get it, and I'll try to post some pics tomorrow.