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They have a nice example of how to do this in a free online PTC Training Class on Surfacing tricks.
The result will be a winding cord around a random curve path much like a old style telephone spiral cord which is much like what you are looking for.
4 steps.
1) Create your general curve path which can be be conceived via using "intersect" of 2 different Sketch features (curves) in 2 different normal planes (like the Front and Right Datums for example). You'll want the resulting geometry to be a tangent contiguous smooth path though otherwise the following sweeps will likely fail. The result will be a 3D wandering path of your design.
2) Create a Variable Section Sweep along this path using the surface option. Sketch a section projected normal to this path which will just be a line radiating from this center point with an angle dimension of zero. The length of the line is the radius of your spiraling cord. Then you just put in a sketcher relation "angle_sd0_dim = 360 *num_of_revolutions * trajpar". Trajpar is a system variable which will vary from 0 to 1. If all goes well, the result will be a "ribbon" which spiral around the original main path.
3) Create another Variable Section Sweep along the edge of the ribbon. If it's a spiraling cord, then the section is just a circle. Be careful that the resulting geometry does not self intersect (ProE doesn't like that).
4) Hide the ribbon surface (put on a layer and blank it).
i am not just talking about one direction. think about a brand new roll of kite string that has been wound back and forth over and overon top of itself. Edited by: megaladon
Look up this link at E-cognition. Though it is not about
the reel, the contents would give you an idea.
<a href="http://www.e-
<br / target="_blank">cognition.net/pages/DatumGraph.html">http://www.e-
cognition.net/pages/DatumGraph.html</a>
I would probably do that cable in 2 steps, first the "inner" then the outer using VSS method. I dont see any reason to do any other revs inside the "inner" since you never see them anyway. The outer would preferebly been done with 2 relations or1 graph and1 relationso you can make it look like it starts at one diameter and expands so its ontop of the inner cable after a couple of revs...
Oh come on. You have to do all the layers so the mass properties and BOM are correct!
Just kidding. I would never do any of that, a pictorial representation is all that's required, just like for springs, screw threads and myriad other complex geometries that needlessly complicate things and add no value.
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