I'm working on a proposal this weekend, and I want an illustration of a kapton flex PC board. Imagine a flat garden rake shape with prongs on both ends, some of them twisted out of the plane. I can draw the flat pattern, and I have a model cut out of paper, but I want a cool 3D illustration, maybe a couple of views, with the transparent amber kapton.
I can go to Tap Plastics and get a sheet of amber plastic film, cut it with scissors, and draw the traces with a silver Sharpie, and fold the ends and hang it from a thread and photograph it. I'd probably get away with that, but a real
3D computer model would look better.
Anybody want to do this this weekend, for some reasonable compensation?
I suppose I should learn some 3D software myself some day.
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John Larkin Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com
Precision electronic instrumentation
Your friend got back to me but, unfortunately, he has other homework this weekend.
I did a dummy design in PADS, printed it, and cut it out with scissors.
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I need to tweak the colors, print the front and back layers properly, and get better with my snipping skills. I'll photograph the final one for the proposal. My customers are getting used to sketches and whiteboard photos and such in my proposals and manuals.
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John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
I took drafting in high school (pencil, paper, triangles) and in college (part 1: paper, part 2: some 2D CAD software that ran on Apollo computers - this was 1991). When I needed to learn 3D CAD at work (a different university) in about 2006, I had some version of Autocad, SolidWorks, and Pro/Engineer (Pro/E) available.
I tried Autocad first and didn't like it. The main problem was that the version I had still used all the unique keyboard shortcuts and mouse operations that Autodesk had to invent in 1984 when nothing on a PC had a GUI; it didn't work like every other Win95-and-up application. I also somewhat vaguely recall that the 3D support was kind of bolted on; you had to draw something in 2D first and then go around and specify a depth/thickness for it.
I asked my boss for advice on choosing SolidWorks or Pro/E. He said that the school had the same question, so they bought licenses of each one and stuck them on the same computers, and the students voted with their feet for SolidWorks. So I followed suit.
SolidWorks worked like every other Windows program, so that was easier. I ran through some of the tutorials that came with it; after a couple of afternoons I could produce reasonable *looking* parts. After another week or so I could make drawings that had all the materials spec'd correctly, tolerances, and so on - something I could hand to a machinist and be reasonably certain that he could make what I drew just by looking at the drawing. I wasn't pushing it very hard, but I couldn't find anything I couldn't make SolidWorks do.
Standard disclaimers apply; I don't get money or other consideration from any companies mentioned.
It's much less expensive than Solid Works, but offers good value. It's a bit like Eagle for pcbs, but for mechanical design. I've found 3D drafting and 3D printing to be indispensable for making prototypes and even for short production runs for jigs and brackets.
POV Ray has little learning; it is like a 3D vector or PostScript-like feel. "Draw" basic objects x,y,z to scale and move+rotate each one to assemble a part and give that a name. All in a "declare" routine that you can call as if a subroutine - to make as may copies as you need for final product. Look at a few of the more simple constructs available.
Wish I'd seen this earlier, could have helped. Here's a quick render with a similar shape.
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Best regards, Spehro Pefhany
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"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
I've worked a lot with a small mechanics workshop. They use Alibre extensively and are very happy with it. I think their largest assemblies are about 200-300 parts. Transferring models from our SW to their Alibre has always worked very well (in STEP file format).
You might want to play around with FreeCAD. It's free and has python scripting like Blender.
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I use it to check PCB 3D step files generated in Altium, check daughter board stacks and to change the colors of component 3D step files I download off the web. It works and isn't too hard to figure out but it can be slow at times.
OK, I sent the proposal off to the customer. I noted in the cover letter that I did a paper model of the flex, and that SolidWorks tries to look like reality, whereas I'm trying to make reality look like SolidWorks.
It's like being in second grade again, paper and glue and stuff, only now I get to use sharp scissors.
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John Larkin Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com
Precision electronic instrumentation
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