The other night i created an assembly of a turnbuckle and for the eye bolts, i used a path from a line i drewn, then created a circle a specific raidus and used the follow me tool to create the bolt. In order to make the bolt a solid, i had to erase the line i used as a path.
For my learning purposes, is it possible to edit the radius of the circle i created so that i can make the bolt a smaller diameter? or do i have to redraw the entire line again, draw the circle and re-do the follow me tool?
I was thinking of the scale tool but i need it to be the same length and i need it to be an exact value i make the bolt diameter.
The easiest solution is to either delete the original eye bolt leaving the original path or move it away and draw the new bolt. The path is still inside the extruded geometry.
That is true. i did notice the path leftover. The only issue i have ran into is, when converting it to a solid, i have to delete that path or solid inspector throws a fit. so that path is no longer there for my other ones that i need to change. Im assuming, once that path is gone, im kinda sunk?
Start over. This time, make it a component. It will then reside in the ‘in model’ collection of the component tray, so you can use it again . (Insert an instance and explode)
ok, i will make it a component and see what happens. I thought of that but i keep getting solids and components mixed up haha
EDIT:
Ok, i see what i could have done. i thought the path and the extrusion became one after the follow me tool. I used box select and i think that is where the issue happened. That is really good to know and see in action that it in fact does not become a part of the extruded geometry. So my lesson is, if i make a path for the follow me tool, always keep the path in the model somewhere so that IF you need to change something, you can do so:)
Thats interesting. if i tripple click, it grabs just the eyebolt geometry, i right click and a make a componet. it creates the solid. so i did a ctrlz and tried tripple click again, then ran solid inspector and it said 34 stray edges. So i ignored the solid inspector, right clicked and made component and it still made a solid. I guess the way solid inspector is progammed, it detects the path on the inside of the drawing, even if tripple clicked. Im not worried about it, just glad to know that it does that so in the future i can remember your tricks:)
Don’t run Solid Inspector before making the component. Ungrouped geometry can’t be solid in the first place. Clearly the extension isn’t reporting correctly in your example.There’s no need to run Solid Inspector unless you’ve got a component that isn’t solid anyhow.
so basically run solid inspector when you have a component that for some reason will not turn solid? ok, that makes sense. Solid tools is amazing. i love what can be done with them.
Thanks again. Im getting faster and faster at modeling:) i printed the turnbuckle and it turned out great.
thats good to know because i run solid inspector on things before i turn them into solids to prevent any issues, but i can see how it can cause headaches haha.
I am using the regular solid tools in SU. I do have eneroth but i never noticed a difference. What does the SU tools do to the components?
And as you see, when you do that, it creates more work than it saves.
The native Solid Tools convert components to groups while Eneroth Solid Tools leave components as components. That means all other instances of a component get modified as they would with any other tools you’d use to edit them.
Yes, it has created more work. Man, glad to know that now and not for my next drawing. that saves me alot of hassle. thanks for that.
thats strange that it does that. Ill have to look in my outliner and see what it does. Ill start using eneroth from now on because i prefer components over groups.
All you have to do is look at Entity Info when you have selected a component that was modified by a solid tool. It’ll show as a group instead of a component and it’ll be called “Difference.”
Profile Builder will change this without having to start over. Select profile and then update it with revised parameters.
As the name suggests you can change the profile too… as well as many other things. I think there is a free version still around on Smustard, but the paid version is worth it for many purposes.
