Drawing a helix. no extensions

Im trying to draw a helical line with no extensions, and its alot harder than i thought haha. my goal is to make it any radius i need, and to have the distance between each helical path(pitch) to be what ever i choose:)

I know i could somehow use half circles, rotate them into palce but i seem to be missing some key ingredient to get it to be the dimensions i would like

i think i just figured it out…But i would like to see others ideas as well:)

image

thanks

Here you go.
Helix

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intersting idea. is it possible to get a 3m radius, with a 1m distance between the bottom helical and top helical when you use the scale tool?

thanks for showing me this.

Yes, start with a 3m circle and drop the helix to 1 m.
It’s a fully adjustable technique, all depends on how you model it.

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ok, cool. im trying it out now. Mine was close. I had it copied 10 times, it looked great, but when i drew a cylinder with same amount of segments, up the center of the helix, exploded said helix, it would not attach itself to the geometry of the cylinder… ill try this method you showed and see what i can do.

thanks

thanks to your idea, i can know make accurate threads with the correct pitch and everything on the web version of SU. This will help alot of people.

image

those are M6x1 threads. with a pitch of 1mm, Major diameter of 6mm and a minor diameter of 4.917 and a pitch diameter of 5.35.

thanks a million for this. i am going to make a video of this. I will be sure to give full credit to you, anyother user that has used this method and the forums for this.

after some clean up:

image

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If you started with half a circle that you slightly rotated to achieve 1/2 pitch, that indeed wouldn’t match the cylinder around it. The half-circle endpoints wouldn’t have equal distances to the helix centerline. That’s what @Box’s method is for: all endpoints at equal distance of centerline in the end.

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Why not upload the drawing to the 3DW? Could be a useful model for lots of other people.

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Give a Man a Fish…

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And he may not split the catch.

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oh no, im gonna split it. I have already made the video of how to do it giving the credit to all you guys:)

makes me jealous that people can figure that out haha. I would have never tried that method. never crossed my mind haha

You could but on the other hand you could not.

1 Like