TurboCAD – Alibre File Transfers.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

When I observed there is little about Fusion and SolidEdge “here” I meant on the Forum as a whole, not this thread.

What I now observe on this thread is a lot of engineering using CAD, CNC, 3D-printing and the rest. Very impressive, I have great respect for its creators, but far beyond me.

I can only work with the tools I have, including the one most important to all us of: own ability.

I undertand my work-rounds may be “wrong”, but if the only way I can progress a project, what matters is that they work.

If I could use either Alibre Atom or TurboCAD Deluxe properly I would use only that one. I took up Alibre because it appeared easier than TurboCAD for me to learn, and it is easier than TC’s 3D system. I found for me, Alibre’s 3D modelling and TurboCAD in 2D mode, of comparable difficulty, compounded by two aspects.

The first is the project entailing designing complicated “works” from virtually no prior information.

The second is my natural learning limit for any given subject. I am not a neuroscientist so can only guess it’s a matter of individual brain physicality.  I cannot advance in CAD to the level illustrated here. That’s not its fault, nor mine, because I cannot help it.

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So my original question, transferring drawing files from system to system to enable me to design what I want to build, is to make the best of what I can do.

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I have created Alibre part images for my engine but cannot assemble them properly in Alibre. Also I repeat, I am designing from scratch an engine whose original version is invisible! I have almost no original material beyond the overall appearance and size of the vehicle. Far less than anyone else here for their own projects.

The gubbins in my wagon are all hidden in boxes, below superstructures, or deep in shadow and very difficult to interpret and scale. No drawings to copy; no full-size survivor to visit. The photographs show only partial exteriors whose details differ from photo to photo.

So: while an orthographic general-arrangement in TurboCAD and part-drawings in either TurboCAD 2D or Alibre 3D is not the best way, it’s the only way I can do it.

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Others can design something of similar complexity in just Alibre Atom: fine! I can only envy their skill. In the end what will count is I get the bloomin’ thing built and working – there is no guarantee it will. If I need overlap two CAD programmes because I cannot learn either of them fully, well, I can’t help that but at least I attempt the thing.

 

I am NOT trying to put anyone off CAD, or any particular CAD make, as I see I was accused of doing.

I cannot learn Matrices or the pianoforte either – but others do, and even become professional Finite-Element Analysts or performers of Rachmaninov concerti.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

 I have almost no original material beyond the overall appearance and size of the vehicle. Far less than anyone else here for their own projects.

Suggest you read my previous post again, a fag packet sketch is a lot less material than you have to go on.

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

Nigel,

You are no more “in the dark” with your lack of basic information about the vehicle of which you are making a model than the original designer(s) of the lorry itself were.  They had no drawings or dimensions to manufacture from, either, just an idea of what their end goal would look like and how large it could or should be.

If someone asked you to build, say, a table, you might just go ahead and screw some pieces of wood together and achieve a passable result.  More likely, I suggest, you would sit down and make a drawing of what the finished product should look like.  Would you then plough straight in and try to carve it out of one massive piece of tree? No, of course not.  You would break it down into top and legs and then think about how to join them together.  The same applies to your lorry. Take it one assembly at a time and split that assembly into its constituent parts (analogous to Atom terminology) before bringing those parts into one finished assembly.

Use the same approach to Atom and you can’t go far wrong, can you?

I just re-read that and it sounds somewhat pretentious and condescending.  It’s not meant to come across that way and if it offends, then I apologise.

John

 

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

John-

Thankyou.

Yes, I see that but those Edwardian designers had a lot of prior knowledge and experience, in a team of properly, apprentice-trained engineers. Their “Light Delivery Van” was their third or fourth vehicle. E.S. Hindley & Sons was already established, making a range of engineering products.  Their first steam-wagon was a spindly affair, with undertype engine and vertical boiler. They developed that experiment into their moderately successful “Standard” 5- and 7- ton undertype and its heavier-duty “Colonial” export variant.

Then in 1908 intoduced this LDV with its vertical mid-engine – as far as I know, a unique arrangement – for 2-3 ton capacity.

The only photograph I have that shows much of the engine is this one:

The engine is that grey box between the seats. I know the bores and stroke but what valve-gear? What are those two pressed-steel bulges (motion-parts clearance??) capped with open elbows, on the “quickly detachable covers” as the original catalogue has it? Where is the reverser? Assuming the regulator being the globe-valve on the boiler, what is that valve with prominent lever on the off-side, HP end, near the driver’s shoulder in full-size, and working across the vehicle?

The transmission is only thought to be 2-speed on this wagon (as we know it was on the Standards, with the gear-lever next to the rear wheel). How is it arranged? Where is its control lever?

Where is the boiler feed-pump, invisible on all photographs?

How does that brake work? On all the other photos it uses blocks drawn against the wheel rims.

You see the problem…..

I have to design something to fit a vague external outline; plus my naturally limited CAD skill enforces my peculiar work-round –  making the draughting possible but more difficult and cumbersome than it should be.

At least when I need choose between the Myford and Harrison lathes for particular work, their operating is much the same. TurboCAD and Alibre are very different.

I don’t have the skill to use either system for 3D assembly modelling; nor can I see how to use Alibre or similar when you have to design the Parts before you know the Assembly.

So far I do have some engine parts made, and a library of Alibre 3D models of others. I think my best bet is to turn the Alibre models to Alibre elevation drawings, export those to TurboCAD and work exclusively in TurboCAD in orthographic mode.

Using 3D-priority CAD is obviously easy for everyone else here, but a blind alley for me.

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

John-

Thankyou.

Yes, I see that but those Edwardian designers had a lot of prior knowledge and experience, in a team of properly, apprentice-trained engineers.

 

The only photograph I have that shows much of the engine is this one:

The engine is that grey box between the seats. I know the bores and stroke but what valve-gear? What are those two pressed-steel bulges (motion-parts clearance??) capped with open elbows, on the “quickly detachable covers” as the original catalogue has it? Where is the reverser? Assuming the regulator being the globe-valve on the boiler, what is that valve with prominent lever on the off-side, HP end, near the driver’s shoulder in full-size, and working across the vehicle?

The transmission is only thought to be 2-speed on this wagon (as we know it was on the Standards, with the gear-lever next to the rear wheel). How is it arranged? Where is its control lever?

Where is the boiler feed-pump, invisible on all photographs?

How does that brake work? On all the other photos it uses blocks drawn against the wheel rims.

You see the problem…..

I have to design something to fit a vague external outline;

 

No, I can’t see the problem. Have you considered that not having detailed descriptions of a well-known prototype makes your design work easier? It doesn’t have to match something lots of people know, because those people don’t exist. The few that might can’t prove that your work is wrong. Instead, design parts that work, fit within the structure and match the engineering of the time. That’s how the original builders did it; why can’t you? There’s lots of Edwardian machinery still about to give you ideas of how they would have connected a brake lever in the driving compartment to the actual brakes, or how any of the other components were supposed to work.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Much like John says you start with a basic sketch just like you would do on a fag packet. Put a few simple shapes into a 2D sketch and a couple of basic sizes. Here I have just shown the chassis, engine, boiler, wheels and drive train with simple shapes. Anything can be altered at this stage.

You then start to produce some basic shapes by taking thos 2D boxes and circles and giving them some depth. Th enext stage is to start putting those shapes together, you can use the original 2D sketch to help place them if you want.

You can still make changes, maybe the chain when it is added will clash with the tank, so alter the tank width/position.

Then you start adding detail like the cylinder has and so on detailing wheels, chassis etc. There will be a lot of going back and forth making tweaks to an old part as newere ones are added but it is a lot better to do it on the screen than waste metal and workshop time.

 

 

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

Nigel,

I wish you luck and eventual success with your endeavours. You have many uphill climbs to surmount.

By the way, I would encourage you, in your efforts to transfer files from Turbocad to Atom, to use the DXF file format instead of DWG. The former was introduced as a Drawing eXchange Format between different CAD systems, whereas DWG was more specific to Autocad.  I always use dxf in such circumstances and have never encountered any problems.

John

 

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Thank you but it still doesn’t really answer the problem. I have, largely, some idea how my engine should go together but am limited by the way it has to match the exterior evidence, and that fact that I cannot use 3D CAD well enough to design anything in it.

By way of interest, Jason, how long did it take you to produce those images? That would have taken me many, many hours with many big errors.

It would take me an evening (3 to 4 hours) just to model those cranked chassis channels, as I found months ago when I tried it, from measuring the real thing. The cylinders, probably two or three evenings with all those details. The boiler is two intersecting cylinders – if I ever managed to model that in 3D, I forget how.

The only way to plot the outlines of their cladding sheets will be by measurements from the shell itself, using a wrapped haberdashery tape or calibrated disc for angular divisions, and testing with cardboard, without a computer in sight. No manual development plotting or CAD methods I do not know; although I have a technical-drawing text-book that gives the pencil and paper method. (Long time since my A-Level Tech. Drg. lessons…)

 

The whole point of me trying to design the remaining areas in CAD is to save precious workshop time, electricity and materials.

I have had to alter or re-make a lot of parts already.

The ashpan is V3.1. Steam turret looks ‘orrible but will do for now. Cosmetic tidying can wait.

Exhaust steam pipe: takes a tortuous route that may need changing, looks grim, and I have lost its connection to the blast-pipe.

Rear axle sprocket – had to be replaced. Front stub-axles: slightly too short, limiting the turning-circle.

Rear axle main shaft: slightly too long for the model – and for putting between centres on the lathe. I’d made it on a bigger machine.

Two pairs of connecting-rods: one pair perhaps too long, the other certainly too short. The long ones, turned from nine-inch lengths of 1.5″ d. steel, might be useable but contain symmetry errors hard to correct satisfactorily.

Cylinder block: needs replacing completely.

Crankshaft: output end too short, so will have to find a way round that.

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Nick –

It’s not really the engineering that is the hard part because I have plenty of “full-size” steam-era and model-engineering reference books to help me, and a set of miniature locomotive drawings to crib the valve-gear from. It’s trying to use CAD that makes it all so difficult.

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Thank you the tip about file type, John.

That might explain why using DWG to move an Alibre drawing to TurboCAD was simpler than vice-versa. I think TurboCAD works similarly to AutoCAD. (Are they by the same company?)

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Probably 10-15mins work.

To be fair I did have the chassis, cylinder, boiler and cross mebmer from using them to answer your other queries. Doing the rough initial sketch, adding wheels, axle, tank etc took the majority of that time.

 

It is not a lot different to the same issues you would face drawing it on paper as you would still have the same limited references and have to come up with much of the detail yourself. And if done as a simple 2D first you are only substituting a screen for the shet of paper. Take one of those examples I showed yesterday looking from a different angle, you can see all the linkages are just simple flat shapes for me to check their movement, really no different to using bits of cardboard and pins stuck into a drawing board. I only need the holes at the ends and the pivot points to se how it works, easy to alter any one and then once happy use those hole positions to develope the actual part around them like the flywheel has been, that was just a disc initially.

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

“I don’t have the skill to use either system for 3D assembly modelling; nor can I see how to use Alibre or similar when you have to design the Parts before you know the Assembly.”

 

But how can you have an assemby without having the parts first?

If you don’t have anything to copy, then you will have to design those parts yourself. If you don’t know how to design the parts to make a working assembly then no CAD system is going to be able to help you.

 

Martin.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Jason –

Originally I was using manual drawing, but that used what I’d been taught years ago, and is far easier than CAD anyway.

It just takes a lot longer and of course does not have such blessings as the geometrical constructions, editing and copying functions normal to CAD, let alone ready isometric plotting.

 

I tried an Alibre ‘Assembly’ of my engine, but it was far too difficult, full of mistakes. I never knew what I was doing wrong. Even without the CAD problems and assembly errors I made, it needs replacing by major component changes and a large flaw I realised in the layout.

Quarter of an hour…. !  I doubt I could create that assembly.  I could not represent that cylinder block as you did, with a profiled recess as if a casting. (Nor make it that shape from solid, anyway.)

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Blowlamp –

Yes, a peculiar circular argument that occurred to me not long after I tried using Alibre.

I know CAD does not help you design the object, only to draw it. I said I have to design most of it myself, from almost nothing.

I can design the components, but only by developing both the parts and assembly in parallel, not parts then assembly or vice-versa.

Jason’s approach might work for me: creating basic outlines and working them up. That is similar to the way I am using TurboCAD in 2D.  However, CAD would help me properly only if I could use it to a suitably high level.

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

Is this what you’re looking to build?

 

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

^^^

Image generated by AI … having skimmed data from this forum ??

🙂

MichaelG.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

One of Steam Scenes I think. Funny enough I snipped an image from the other side yesterday and was going to post this as an alternative way to start your layout. Rather than a fag packet doodle over an image but I thought that may complicate things further for Nigel. Needs a bit more scaling and some compensation for prospective.

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

If Nigel can find out where this is next on display then he has a great photo opportunity ahead of him. 😉

 

Martin.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Ingratiating oneself with Vincent Engineering might be a good move !!

MichaelG.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Thankyou Jason.

No, Michael, those are genuine photographs… Taken at the Great Dorset Steam Fair some years ago.

That is indeed the vehicle, or rather a modern replica. I do have those photographs, sent me by someone… or I did. I seem mysteriously to have lost quite a number of photos and all around the time the Seattle lot “up-graded” my computer from WIN-10 to 11. They might be still on my previous PC if they are not in Mickeysoft’s server “cloud” .

 

However, I have not seen that lorry for myself. It was built to commission by Richard (‘Turbo’) Vincent and I tried to ask its owner if I could visit it, but he was reluctant to let me. Understandably, perhaps.

I do not know where it is, nor if it ever appears anywhere else. I have not heard of it doing so, and of course the GDSF has died.

I did though visit that replica under construction, though at that stage it was just a chassis frame on trestles, and a boiler. I think it was Mr. Vincent who sent me the photo I posted a few messages back, and he admitted having no more infomation than I did. He wondered about modifying a Sissons engine, also an inverted-vertical, enclosed machine, and I do not know if that is what the replica has.

On the other hand Richard Vincent is a professional preservation engineer with far more experience and facilities than I have.

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Despite the low light level, that marquee photo does show the transmission is two-speed, though not how you change gear; and the peculiar way to let the steam at the engine. There is also a faint hint of a lever with trigger, below the regulator: the reverser?

It also shows the steering-box used on the Hindley “Standard” wagons, hinting different gears (worm and quadrant or screw and nut).

Hindleys did not like to standardise parts too much. That prominent gear-frame plate on the nearside, in the outdoor picture, is different on every photograph showing it, but all show it carries the radius-rod pivot, presumably axially with the sprocket shaft. I have used a commercial rose-joint between two plates: they are reasonably discreet. Slightly less discreet on the Ackermann steering whose original was all clevises, but I don’t want to emulate M. Cugnot’s unfortunate driver!

I cannot identify the blackness beyond where you’ve placed the sketched sprocket.

 

The outdoor photo hints something unexpected. The steering-column looks not only raked aft-wards as you’d expect, but also to starboard. Original photos including the driver do suggest the column was inboard of his left foot. They didn’t want it too comfy for him!

It also reveals a big, inverted-arch stretcher under the boiler, and on mine it carries a hardwood V-block, boiler support.

I have met someone who has briefly driven that replica. He confirmed the regulator at least on that specimen is that arkwardly-placed globe-valve (for rapid shut-off?), and said driving it is not easy! My answer for my model, given how one has to drive such a model, and my making the engine simple-expansion, is to use what I think the starting-valve as the regulator and leave the globe-valve open, closed only for the hydraulic tests.

Still, I have never claimed mine is a rivet-counter’s special, but tries to represent an average of the originals as well as it can. This “Light Delivery Van” appeared to have been built in different chassis lengths, and I have made mine the “Lightest”, perhaps slightly under-length on the chassis. It’s also fractionally under scale width… so it fitted through my house door. Not that anyone would know or notice.  The Vincent replica seems of the longer variants. That long-ways chassis in my photo, with water-tank ahead of the axle, was probably of short form to take a tipping body.

 

There IS another 4″-scale model already built, by a member of Taunton MES, but I do not think he still owns it, have lost touch with him and I do not where that model now lives. I saw it, static, at that Society’s exhibition maybe twelve years ago now; but did not meet its owner.

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

[…]

No, Michael, those are genuine photographs… Taken at the Great Dorset Steam Fair some years ago.

 

[…]

Forgive me for trying to inject some levity, Nigel

🙁

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

On a serious note, Nigel … I am struggling to reconcile the semantics

Vincent states Restored

Nigel states Replica

Such distinctions matter, do they not ?

MichaelG.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Seems Nigel should spend a bit more time looking at the net, with a bitof help from Mr Google’s lens it would seem this wagon is regularly out and about. Even if you can’t get there in person there are a lot more images about than the part built ones in the tent or maybe someone would take a few more detailed photos for you.

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

“Quarter of an hour…. ! I doubt I could create that assembly. I could not represent that cylinder block as you did, with a profiled recess as if a casting. (Nor make it that shape from solid, anyway.)”

 

Maybe it’s how you are approaching its construction.

One way would be to use a box primitive for the cylinder block.

Boolean cut a rectangular hole straight through the side of the block to create the void.

Extrude both cylinders from top to bottom of the block and of the correct external diameter to leave a suitable cylinder wall thickness.

Boolean union the three pieces together.

Boolean cut the cylinder bores.

Fillet edges around cylinder walls.

 

Martin.

 

 

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I Have a feeling that Atom does not have Boolean.

When I did the example for Nigel I kept it as simple as possible a mid plane sketch, cut-extrude equally in both directions. Fillet the ends and mirror

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

To mock-up the basics of the model, the cylinder block only needs to be a solid, rectangular block. The actual cylinder block can be accurately modelled later.

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