Precision Modeling. A guide to modeling parts and components accurately using Blender

151 Pages·4.46 MB·English

by  Burke R.

006
Introduction
This guide was created to assist Artists and Engineers, to learn the basics of
mesh modelling of non deformable objects with 'Blender'. It uses a structured
approach to introducing Blenders tools and work-methods. Following the
guide should enable you to become familiar with blender and create models
from the simplest of parts to complex accurate engineering assemblies and
designs.
The guide focuses solely on Blenders Mesh Modelling capabilities, it ignores
the myriad of animation, texturing and photo-realistic rendering tools and
concentrates solely on getting started and producing accurate models suited
for both artistic and engineering purposes.
The guide was originally made as a series of web pages that documented the
design ideas and Blender methods used do design a few of the components I
will be making for a rebuild of my CNC router. It has been ported to this .pdf
book from the web pages, so some references in the guide will still only relate
to the on-line version.
The Small Print
This guide is provided as a free reference to new and existing Blender users. The contents of
the guide are copyright Robert Burke © 2007, but permission is granted for you to store a
copy on your computer or print a hard copy for personal use only. You may not use this guide
for any commercial purposes without written permission. (I have donated my time and knowledge
free to produce the guide, I don't expect people to make money from it)
THIS GUIDE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING,
WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
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Contents
Page No
Introduction 2
Contents 3
Getting Started 4
Overview of Controls 5
Blender Units and Precision 9
Modelling in Blender 11
Modelling a 608 Bearing
Part -1 Reference Geometry 13
Part – 2. The Inner and Outer Race 21
Part – 3 Adding the Ball Bearings 30
Part – 4 Modelling the Bearing Cage 35
Part – 5 Detailing the Cage Securing Clasp 46
Part – 6 Modelling the Dust Shield 51
Part – 7 Modelling the Circlip 59
Part – 8 The Low Polygon Bearing 62
Part – 9 Materials and Rendering 68
Part – 10 Constructing a Page Layout 73
Part – 11 The Scale Drawing Layout 79
Modelling a Guide Roller
Part – 1 Modelling the 'V' Roller 89
Part – 2 The Guide Roller Axle 98
Part – 3 Detailed Thread Profile 109
Part – 4 Laying out the Component Drawing 119
Designing a Casting
Part – 1 Positioning the Components 130
Part – 2 The Initial Layout 136
Part – 3 Roller Nut Mounting Brackets 142
Part – 4 Completing the Casting 148
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Starting Blender
There is a wealth of information available on the Internet in the form of
manuals, guides and tutorials that cover the full potential of this program. This
Guide is intended as a starter for people interested in the creation of mesh
models and more specifically, dimensionally accurate mesh models. Appendix
1 gives a short list of useful Internet links.
Obtaining and loading Blender
The Open Source and freely available creative package Blender can be
downloaded from www.blender.org. Once on the site, click the download link
to open the download page. Choose the file to suit your operating system and
follow the simple installation instructions at the bottom of the download page
to install the program.
What you see when the program starts
When you run blender for the first time you are presented with the default
screen. It contains the user preference’s window at the top of the screen. The
main 3D work area in the centre of the screen and the buttons window at the
bottom of the screen.
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A Quick Overview of the controlls.
Relevant sections of the program
When you first start modelling, the main two screens are already open, the 3D
workspace and the Buttons window. A cube object (1) is in the centre of the
3D view and the window is orientated so you are looking down onto the top of
the cube. There is also a Lamp (2) to illuminate the cube and a Camera (3) to
output a 2D bitmap of the cube.
3D View: Header Bar
At the bottom of the 3D view is blenders View Header Bar. The purpose of
each section within the view header is detailed below.
1) Window Type
Click on the window type button and a menu
will appear showing all the different window
types. Each window has a function within
the process of 3D modelling, image creation
or animation. However our initial interest lies
just with the following windows:
3D View:
Buttons Window:
This contains Blenders control
buttons.
Outliner:
A structured view of objects within the
3D scene and there relationships to
each other.
Script Window:
To run useful add on scripts.
2) Pull up menu
A context sensitive menu showing the operations that can be carried out and
the keyboard shortcut for the operation.
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3) Mode:
The operating mode for the window, initially
we will only be using Object mode and Edit
mode.
Object mode is where assemblies of
components are constructed.
Edit mode is where the individual
components are modelled.
4) Draw type
This is the way the model is displayed on
screen. The two useful types we are
interested in for modelling are Wireframe
and Solid.
5) Pivot Point
This gives a choice of centre points for
rotating and scaling the 3D models.
6) Widget control
Click the hand icon to de-select this. It
should show a light grey background
7) Layers
These allow you to organise components in
big assemblies, only showing those that are
needed.
Buttons Window Header Bar
Context Buttons:
These change the control button options in context with the operation you are
performing.
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8) Material Context Button
Brings up a choice of material texturing and lighting options.
9) Editing Button
Brings up the modelling tools.
10) Render Button
Controls the output to a 2D-bitmap image.
11) Material Sub-context
Each context button has sub context options.
Understanding 3D co-ordinates and Blenders 3D views
When you first run blender you are presented with a view of the workspace
looking directly down from above. The screen in this position represents the X
and Y-axis. The Z-axis is coming away from the screen directly towards you.
You can change the view direction by either clicking and holding the middle
mouse button whilst dragging the mouse to rotate the view around a point in
3D space, or using one of the pre-set views accessed via the number buttons
on the right of the keyboard. (Num Pad Buttons)
When modelling in blender you draw parallel to the surface of the view at the
depth of the 3D Cursor (small cross hair positioned by clicking the Left Mouse
Button), so the view rotation and position of the cursor is important to the
desired outcome.
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Blender uses the right hand co-ordinate
system with the Z-axis pointing upwards. This
is in common with the co-ordinate systems
used by most common 3D CAD packages. Its
worth noting though, that some programs use
a co-ordinate system where the Y axis points
up and it may be necessary to rotate the
model if exporting your model into a program
with this configuration.
Blender displays the co-ordinate as:
DX 0.0000 DY 0.0000 DZ 0.0000 (0.0000)
When moving or extruding a vertex the
bracketed figure denotes the distance from
the start point and DX, DY, DZ will change
relative to the distance along the axis relative
to the start point.
Cartesian Co-ordinates
In object mode The Transform Properties
pane, accessed by pressing the N key,
displays the objects position, relative to the
global co-ordinates. It also gives details of its
rotation, scale and bounding box size. The
object centre co-ordinates of the blue cube in
the Cartesian co-ordinates diagram are
displayed in the Transform properties
window.
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Blender units and precision
In order to make blender units represent a real world unit it is necessary to
assign a dimension size to the blender unit. When Blender first opens you are
presented with the default cube measuring 2 blender units wide by 2 blender
units deep by 2 blender units high. When importing a VRML or STL file into a
rapid prototyping machine it is necessary to tell the software what dimension
the units represent. So in order to manufacture an accurate 3D model in
Blender and export it to a 3D printer or CNC machine, you need to know what
the blender unit represents as a real world measurement.
The 3D world within Blender isn’t an unlimited space and there are restrictions
as to how big a model can be. Size is limited by the available power and fall-
off distance of the lights, the maximum clipping distance of the view camera
and the maximum clipping distance of the render (output) camera. Complexity
of a model is limited by the amount of vertices your system can handle. The
more powerful a machine you have the more vertices you will be able to
handle before the computer starts to lag behind the speed you can model at.
So how big should I make a blender unit?
If you were considering modelling a precision component or assembly, being
able to model down to sub micron accuracy would be a distinct advantage. So
if we consider one blender unit to equal one millimetre how accurate can we
get? Blender allows you to numerically input the distance of vertices to the
precision of 4 decimal places (0.0000). Say you extrude a vertex 0.0001mm
along the X-axis you have set its position 1/10th of a micron from the original.
Pretty darn accurate and given that the best CNC machining centres can
position to an accuracy of plus or minus 3 microns, you can model to a much
greater accuracy than you could ever manufacture to. The draw back to this is
your viewable workspace will be limited to a cube with 10 metre sides. This is
due to the clipping limit of the view camera, but unless you are designing a
gantry mill to cut the wing spars for an Air-Bus A380 this shouldn't present a
problem.
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Putting Size into Perspective
¤ The human hair is around 76 microns thick.
¤ Most general purpose machine tools in
skilled hands would be able to work within
two thousands of an inch (50 microns)
¤ The best CNC machining centres can
position to an accuracy of plus or minus 3
micron, with repeatability of plus or minus 1
micron.
¤ A 100mm-iron bar will expand 0.012mm with
a rise in temperature of 10 degrees C
Other scales could be chosen for precision work such as 1 blender unit =
10mm giving a work area of 100 cubic metres, however this confuses the
process and you constantly need to be aware of where the decimal point goes
when you are entering extrude lengths etc.
For architectural designs it is common to use a scale of 1 blender unit = 1
metre allowing a viewable design space of 10 cubic kilometres and an
accuracy of 0.1mm
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