UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO

Project 03 Solid Modeling Assignment 03 - MAE 377

Jonathan E. Jones – 3451-8370

9/30/2009

Project 03 was meant to continue the learning of an aspiring Engineering student in the usage of ProEngineering Wildfire 4.0. By the completion of three drawings, one two dimensional drawing, and one assembled project, I learned such techniques as sweep, blend, warp and BOM balloons.

2 | P a g e

Table of Contents 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 3

2 Problem Statement ............................................................................................................................... 3

3 Results ................................................................................................................................................... 3

3.1 Part A ............................................................................................................................................. 3

3.2 Part B ............................................................................................................................................. 4

3.3 Part C ............................................................................................................................................. 4

3.4 Part D ............................................................................................................................................ 5

4 Discussion .............................................................................................................................................. 7

5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 7

6 References ............................................................................................................................................ 7

3 | P a g e

1 Introduction Project 03 has served as a continuation of the CAD skills I learned in this earlier Project 01 and 02. This

project was designed to teach me the more obscure, but useful tasks in ProEngineering Wildfire 4.0.

This also forced me to hone some skills that I learned in Project 02. I daresay that with the completion of

this project I have added a few more handy tools to my current repertoire of abilities.

2 Problem Statement In order to further my three-dimensional CAD skills, I was tasked with drawing three figures from our

engineering textbook Pro\ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0, along with a major assembly consisting of eight

separate components. The first three drawings were designed to teach us how to sweep, blend, and

warp within the realms of ProE, and therefore required a more step-by-step approach to its completion.

The final assembly of a space-age cell phone was a little more free rein than the earlier parts, but still

offered a step-by-step approach if required.

3 Results Fortunately for me, I was able to effectively recreate the models we were tasked with completing in

Project 03. The following sections will detail how I went about creating each part, describing any pitfalls

I may have run into along the way.

3.1 Part A Part A constituted of a very simple design, only meant to teach us the basics of executing a sweep. In

our case and as shown in Figure 1, a sweep can look like a very twisted extrusion of a constant cross

sectional area. This piece in actuality was very easy to make, and following the instructions laid out in

our book, was completed within a half hour.

(a) (b) Figure 1 (a) The CAD model of the block made in Part A; (b) the same CAD model of Part A at a different view.

4 | P a g e

3.2 Part B Part B proved to be a little more time consuming than Part A. This piece was meant to teach us how to

create a smoothed blend, utilizing a set of three sketches. Something useful I feel gleaned from this

section of Project 03 was the process of setting up datum planes “on the fly.” The three sketches used

to create the blend were all offset from the Front plane by a specified amount, and this was necessary

(and ultimately useful in the long run) for creating this Part. One problem encountered in this section

was that my blend became twisted during the final part of the process. This was because some of my

blend arrows were going in the clockwise direction and some were in the counterclockwise direction,

turning out to be a quick fix.

(a) (b) Figure 2 (a) The CAD model of the blend made in Part B; (b) the same CAD model of Part B at a different view.

3.3 Part C I thought I was going to have legitimate fun making part C of Project 03, as it looked like I was going to

distort and twist a toothpaste tube to my heart’s content. The initial setup of the “unsqueezed”

toothpaste tube was fairly easy, utilizing our recently garnered Blend techniques and a few extrusions

and revolves. The warp feature itself was also fairly easy once the instructions were followed tick for

tack in our textbook. I do not really know how often I will need to warp future CAD drawings, but at

least for now I know how to execute this skill seamlessly.

5 | P a g e

(a) (b) Figure 3 (a) The CAD model of the toothpaste tube made in Part C; (b) the same CAD model of Part C at a different view.

3.4 Part D Part D was an entire Project in and of itself. Utilizing the text “Getting Started with ProEngineering

Wildfire 3.0” uploaded on our course website, I begun by making the eight separate components of the

cell phone. This proved to not be hard by itself, with none of the techniques more difficult than

drafting, cuts, and some slightly difficult patterning. Actually, the patterning of the keypad proved quite

difficult, as I could never get the “parent” button to automatically update the rest of the pattern when

some of its dimensions are changed.

After all of the components had been drawn, the assembly step came to the fore of my attention.

Taking all of the components and aligning them properly in the assembly was not that much of a big

deal. This is our second assembly, and most of the commands are pretty straightforward, so that part of

the project was fairly easy. One hiccup that I did encounter was the reliability of my unit system. When

creating the screw holes in my back cover, the size ratios were all over the place. My screw hole looked

like it should have been in a part at least 20 times the size of my back cover. This was corrected by

changing the units to the ProE English default, but greatly affected the assembly process. Now, all of the

components’ units had to be changed to the ProE English default, as they would show up as naught but

a speck in the assembly. The rest of this section came together without a hitch.

The rest of Part D was comprised of creating a 2D assembly drawing of the exploded cell phone,

something that ProE takes care of quite seamlessly from its 3D counterpart. I could not get the

orientation of the 2D cell phone to look quite as well as I would have liked, but I feel that this is not a

large deterrent to the quality of Project 03. After being walked through the process of creating a Bill of

Materials and BOM balloons to go along with our 2D drawing, Part D was nothing but a thing of the past.

6 | P a g e

Figure 4: The 2D CAD drawing of the cell phone composed from its 3D counterpart. BOM included.

(a) (b) Figure 5 (a) The CAD assembly of the cell phone in Part D, exploded view; (b) the same assembly in an unexploded view.

7 | P a g e

4 Discussion The specific problems detailed in Sections 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4, regarding the creations of Parts A, B, C,

and D have already been duly noted. Project 03 was all in all, not too difficult of a project in terms of

the difficulty of creating the parts. The true challenge lies in maintaining the mental conditioning to

work so long on a project every week. Project 03 totaled over 20 hours in the computer lab over the

past week, which would be a daunting commitment for a student solely enrolled in this course.

Unfortunately for me, I am also involved in many other classes and other activities that facilitate my

renaissance man demeanor. This class is very time consuming, and it truly gives me and appreciation

of the difficulty of the engineering field as a whole. Designing products does not happen overnight,

and even if you have an entire idea worked out completely in your mind, transferring that to a three

dimensional CAD representation could take weeks. Now that’s a scary thought.

5 Conclusion Project 03 did end up being quite the lengthy project, accumulating over 20 hours in total. The

problems detailed in Sections 3.1-3.4 truly dirtied the pleasurable mood in the computer lab over the

past week. I eventually created all four parts of the project up to specification, utilizing my newly

discovered talents of sweep, blend, warp and bill of material creation. Reusing the skills of 3D assembly

and the transformation of 3D into 2D drawings are skills that I am glad I am being forced to use again, as

they are some of the most rewarding and pertinent of the bunch. My engineering brethren and I have

come to truly appreciate the maniacal time consuming struggle it is to accomplish so much CAD week

after week, something we are going to have to come to wallow in and enjoy in our upcoming years in

the “real world.”

6 References

1.) Toothpaste Tutorial. (2009) [Online]. Adapted from “Pro Engineer Wildfire 3.0 for Designer"

Available:

https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboa

rd%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_77303_1%26url%3d

2.) Toogood, Roger, Pro\ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0. Edmonton, Alberta: ProCAD Books Ltd, 2006.

3.) Parametric Technology Corporation. (2006) [Online]. Getting Started with Pro/ENGINEER®

Wildfire™ 3.0. Available:

https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboa

rd%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_77303_1%26url%3d