Spring Ends in SOLIDWORKS
In my last blog article, I went over a fun little topic regarding custom shaped springs. While not always necessary, you usually always have to do something with the end of the spring. SOLIDWORKS doesn’t usually like to fillet to a helix which makes things hard.
You can use a bunch of entities for a sweep path and get solid edges, or you can use a fit spline which can work for some transitions:
Going back to my last blog article we helped form our shapes using surface bodies. We can do the same thing here.
Starting with our helix and 2 paths:
We can then add an additional line and sweep surfaces:
After sweeping surfaces, you can knit them and add fillets and then use the outside edge for a sweep:
This quick method will allow you easy control over the radii, and ease of sketching the shapes and allow you to bring the spring flat at the end or add a hook to the end.
Fred Zobel
Senior Support Engineer
Computer Aided Technology, LLC