Let's script!
Latest thing i did was about increasing the speed of the bearing generator macro. I realized that any boolean involving a torus will spend a lot of time to generate.
Torus is needed to create the groove of the ball bearing and the only way I've imagined to do something similar without using torus was creating the bearing ring profile and revolving.
This is what I am going to explain in this post, how to create bearings using scripted sketches.
Note: full code at the bottom
This picture should explain easily how we want to achieve that:
Area A equals to the profile of the outter ring, area B to the profile of the inner ring and C is the groove of the bearing.
A and B rectangles have they edges opened because we want to round them (once we are sketching, is just easier this way than using booleans for rounding corners). This rounding is accomplished by arcs.
I'm explaining only one ring with detail, inner and outter ring are actually the same process (copy-paste)
First of all, libraries needed:
import Part
import math
from FreeCAD import Base
Profile definition: Lines and Arcs
To introduce a line object from A to B in FreeCAD by command line type:
LineName=Part.makeLine((AX,AY,AZ),(BX,BY,BZ))
To create an arc object with radius, center position, orientation and angle, do:
ArcName=Part.makeCircle(Radius, Base.Vector(CenterX,CenterY,CenterZ), BaseVector(DirectionX,DirectionY,DirectionZ), StartingAngle, EndingAngle)
The vector BaseVector(DirectionX,DirectionY,DirectionZ) must be perpendicular to the plane where we want the arc to be placed.
For example, if we ant the arc to be in a XY plane, one perpendicular vector would be (0,0,1).
Starting angle and ending angle provides the ability to create arcs and is also dependent of the plane where we have placed the arc. This is harder to explain but anyone wanting to go further just read a bit about cross product
For what we are doing here, our direction is (0,0,1) which makes starting and ending angles to be specified in the normal counter-clockwise format.
Now take some time to obtain the points A to B of every line (z always 0):
A means starting point.
B means ending point.
Line 1 (L1):
L1 A X position= r1
L1 A Y position= Radial thickness
L1 B X position= Bearing thickness - r1
L1 B Y position= Radial thickness
L1 command:
L1=Part.makeLine((r1, Radial thickness, 0), (Bearing thickness - r1, Radial thickness, 0))
Line 2 (L2):
L2 A X position=Bearing thickness
L2 A Y position=Radial thickness - r1
L2 B X position=Bearing thickness
L2 B Y position=r2
L2 command:
L2=Part.makeLine((Bearing thickness, Radial thickness - r1), (Bearing thickness, r2))
This is more tedious than complicated, I think is easy to continue and create the 2 lines left. If you have problems, please, comment.
Arc
Arc is more less the same but has an extra feature that is the starting and ending point.
To create the upper left arc:
Center position:
X=r1
Y=Radial thickness - r1
Z=0
Angle:
Start angle*=90º
End angle*=180º
*using vector (0,0,1) as arc placement
Arc command:
A1=Part.makeCircle(r1, Base.Vector(r1, Radialthickness - r1, 0), Base.Vector(0,0,1), 90, 180)
Upper right arc:
Center position:
X=Bearing thickness - r1
Y=Radial thickness - r1
Z=0
Angle:
Start angle*=0º
End angle*=90º
*using vector (0,0,1) as arc placement
Arc command:
A1=Part.makeCircle(r1, Base.Vector(Bearing thickness - r1, Radialthickness - r1, 0), Base.Vector(0,0,1), 0, 90)
The same as lines, I think is easy to create the two arc remaining.
Now we have arcs and lines that aren't nothing more by themselves. To link everything together, we create a wire.
Wire command is easy:
Wiredthing=Part.Wire( [ thingA, thingB, thingC, ... , thing N ] )
If you followed my naming method, your wire command should be something like:
ProfileWire=Part.Wire( [L1,A1,L2,A2,L3,A3,L4,A4] )
From wire we can create a face by typing:
ProfileFace=Part.Face(ProfileWire)
If you give some value to Radial thickness and Bearing thickness, this should be the output of the whole thing above (remember Part.show(NAME) to make it visible):
You can see here the orientation:
Faces can be involved in boolean operations and to create the groove of the bearing, we are going to cut our surface with a circle.
To create a circle:
Circle=Part.makeCircle(CircleRadius, Base.Vector(0,0,0), Base.Vector(0,0,1),0, 360)
Circle=Part.Wire([Circle])
Circle=Part.Face(Circle)
Part.show(Circle)
Positioning and cutting:
This is exactly the same that has been used in previous scripts.
To move something just:
TraslationVector(X, Y, Z)
Something.translate(TranslationVector)
To cut two parts:
CuttedPart=PartA.cut(PartB)
Where par B cuts partA.
Be careful when moving our ring section because the translation vector will position the parte from the relative zero where it was created.
The circle relative zero is positioned on its center.
At the end we should se something like this (depending where you have moved your circle you will see something different or nothing at all if both surfaces do not intersect):
The outer ring profile is done with this steps. Inner ring is almost equal, if you have problems after reading the full code, comment.
Revolving faces
With the profile defined and ready, we can go from 2d to 3d by revolving the face.
Command:
RevolutedFace=Face.revolve(Base.Vector(0,0,0), Base.Vector(360,0,0))
First Base.Vector has something to do about axis scale, we do not want to distort our face so just keep it (0,0,0). Second Base.Vector tells the rev axis and how many degrees of revolution we want. 360 means full revolution.
Screenshot:
Few milliseconds and we have the outer ring, with groove and rounded corners. This could take up to 4-5 seconds when using the torus method.
Using the same method to the inner ring and adapting the ball generator from previous scripts, we have a bearing like this one:
Not too different from previous versions, but faster to load.
Plus this method gives me the ability to create new types of bearings with increased complexity, like conical thrust bearing.
CODE
This code, as is, will generate the above bearing and any other you need only changing the input parameters.
#############################################################
####### JMG December 2013 Linux Mint 15 KDE ###############
#############################################################
import Part
import math
from FreeCAD import Base
################ INPUT PARAMETERS #####################
rout=20 ###External radius
rin=10 ###Inner radius
bth=8 ###Bearing thickness
##########################################
DeltaR=rout-rin
Lb=((rout-rin)/2)+rin
Rb=0.3*bth
############## Outer ring (a) ##############################:
r1a=1
r2a=0.5
btha=bth ###UPPER RING THICKNESS
rtha=rout-Lb-0.8*Rb ###UPPER RING RADIAL THICKNESS
#Lines
L1a=Part.makeLine((r1a,rtha,0),(btha-r1a,rtha,0))
L2a=Part.makeLine((btha,rtha-r1a,0),(btha,r2a,0))
L3a=Part.makeLine((btha-r2a,0,0),(r2a,0,0))
L4a=Part.makeLine((0,r2a,0),(0,rtha-r1a,0))
#Corner rounding
A1a=Part.makeCircle(r1a,Base.Vector(btha-r1a,rtha-r1a,0),Base.Vector(0,0,1),0,90)
A2a=Part.makeCircle(r2a,Base.Vector(btha-r2a,r2a,0),Base.Vector(0,0,1),270,360)
A3a=Part.makeCircle(r2a,Base.Vector(r2a,r2a,0),Base.Vector(0,0,1),180,270)
A4a=Part.makeCircle(r1a,Base.Vector(r1a,rtha-r1a,0),Base.Vector(0,0,1),90,180)
##################
Ur=Part.Wire([L1a,A1a,L2a,A2a,L3a,A3a,L4a,A4a])
Ur=Part.Face(Ur)
VUR=(0,rout-rtha,0)
Ur.translate(VUR)
################Inner ring(b):################################:
r1b=0.5
r2b=0.5
bthb=bth
rthb=rtha
#Lines
L1b=Part.makeLine((r1b,rthb,0),(bthb-r1b,rthb,0))
L2b=Part.makeLine((bthb,rthb-r1b,0),(bthb,r2b,0))
L3b=Part.makeLine((bthb-r2b,0,0),(r2b,0,0))
L4b=Part.makeLine((0,r2b,0),(0,rthb-r1b,0))
#Corner rounding
A1b=Part.makeCircle(r1b,Base.Vector(bthb-r1b,rthb-r1b,0),Base.Vector(0,0,1),0,90)
A2b=Part.makeCircle(r2b,Base.Vector(bthb-r2b,r2b,0),Base.Vector(0,0,1),270,360)
A3b=Part.makeCircle(r2b,Base.Vector(r2b,r2b,0),Base.Vector(0,0,1),180,270)
A4b=Part.makeCircle(r1b,Base.Vector(r1b,rthb-r1b,0),Base.Vector(0,0,1),90,180)
###########################################################
Ir=Part.Wire([L1b,A1b,L2b,A2b,L3b,A3b,L4b,A4b])
Ir=Part.Face(Ir)
VIR=(0,rin,0)
Ir.translate(VIR)
#################### GROOVE #############################
Rb=0.25*(rout-rin)
groove=Part.makeCircle(Rb,Base.Vector(0,0,0),Base.Vector(0,0,1),0,360)
groove=Part.Wire([groove])
groove=Part.Face(groove)
VGROOVE=(bth/2,Lb,0)
groove.translate(VGROOVE)
#Cut
Ur=Ur.cut(groove)
Ir=Ir.cut(groove)
######################## 3D ############################
Ur=Ur.revolve(Base.Vector(0,0,0),Base.Vector(360,0,0))
Ir=Ir.revolve(Base.Vector(0,0,0),Base.Vector(360,0,0))
################### Ball Creator ########################
BN=(math.pi*Lb)*0.8/(Rb) ### BALL NUMBER
BN=math.floor(BN)
BN=int(BN)
for i in range (BN):
Sph=Part.makeSphere(Rb)
Alpha=(i*2*math.pi)/BN
VSph=(bth/2, Lb*math.sin(Alpha), Lb*math.cos(Alpha))
Sph.translate(VSph)
Part.show(Sph)
### Show parts
Part.show(Ur)
Part.show(Ir)
I want to create more scripted parts this holidays, stay tuned.
Bye!
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