Hi all, I am currently designing this bracket and have been at it for hours trying to make a nice curve joining these two cylinders to the top bracket, any help or recommendations would be greatly appreciated, thanks guys!
Bracket.skp (1.2 MB)
Bracket with Arcs.skp (1.1 MB)
I got you started by drawing two arcs. I did not make any thicknesses or expand them. I don’t know where you want to go from here. I just made 6 segments in each arc. You have lots of groups called difference. I think you need to make them into components.
Hi thank you for the response, I’ve updated the file with a rough idea of what I’m trying to achieve. Almost like all the curves just blending into one. Really not sure if I’m overcomplicating this or whether what I can imagine isn’t physically possible haha. Whats the benefit of making them into components?
Bracket with Arcs.skp (1.1 MB)
You’re welcome, @DaveR can articulate that better than I can. It would help you organize your work, especially if you tag them. You can easily hide some components while you work on others, if they are tagged, too.
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model 3D.skp (1.2 MB)
You can only model a quarter and then mirror. Bezier Curve and Fredo Curviloft extensions.
Depending on how arched you want the surface to be, modify the curves at the end and then generate the new surface.
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Seems like this might be a good place to use the “Soap Skin & Bubble” extension by @Josef (Josef Leibinger). Once you define a “frame” … it fills it in nicely.
Would would have gone a lot faster if the bracket had been perfectly symmetrical.
Here is the SketchUp model … you can experiment some more with it yourself if you are so inclined.
241101A_Bracket.skp (1.7 MB)
Wow, that’s amazing, thank you so much. I’ve been playing around and making new curves. However, I am struggling to make the models into solids, as the aim is to 3D print a few things with similar curves. Any help to make this a solid would be amazing thank you!
bracket2.skp (1.6 MB)
Being a bit more precise with your placement of corners etc. will make the creation of “true” solids much easier. One thing I have have found helpful is a technique I learned from @Box. Set SketchUp “Units” to meters … and then “think” in millimeters. That way SketchUp is “happy” because of the “large” geometry … but the slicer can interpret the units as millimeters … so you don’t even have to bother with scaling the model down for use by the slicer.
Regardless, when I converted the various groups of your model into one “solid” … it still had +1000 errors. But in the end, the slicer (Cura in this case) did not really seem to care all that much. The STL file sliced … and printed fine.
Not sure what level of precision you require for this bracket to be useful … but for an “extra fast” print in PLA+, this seems OK to me.
Meanwhile, here is the SKP and STL files of this bracket.
241102B_Bracket.skp (1.2 MB)
241102B_Bracket.stl (727.4 KB)
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