Having problems putting my dxf file into 2d design

I have been trying import my funglasses dxf file into 2d design, so that the glasses could be milled out for an example but only a few lines seem to appear in 2d design. I have revisited pro enginner and re created the dxf file but it will not work ahhhhhhhh

Some Photos of the CAM facilities

The milling machines are not used in the lower years, but I have seen them being used in the GCSE groups.

Example of the Fun Glasses work book we have developed

Fun Glasses goes Live

Myself and Paul Simms are running the fun glasses project at our placement school. We have developed a work book and the students seem to be enjoying the project. The School does not have a laser cutter so we are using 2d design and getting the students to model their ideas in card first. We will also be giving the students a template to work from so we can make sure that the glasses will fit together and they dont make glasses that are too large.

I am sure their will be some headaches when all the students start using 2d design to create their profiles. We are try to limit these by getting the students to break down their designs into simple shapes.

Hopefully we can get some photos up of the project in full swing.

Specs Assembly

Here is a image of my specs assembled in pro engineer, it too a while to figure out how to do the assembly but I got there in the end with allot of head scratching

specs cut

The specs are cut and I am happy with the result, I had a small problem with getting the blue inserts to fit without leaving a gap. To fix this problem I just made the inserts about 3% bigger to counter for the actual cut of the laser.

Mood Board

lichtenstein is where a drew my inspiration from, I like the colors and the comic book feel

his work has.

DXF Files ready

The Rockets will be in red

The Arms will be in yellow and the wing inserts below

will also be in yellow.

Auto Desk V Pro Engineer

With it being sunday evening I decided to have a play on Auto Desk Inventor to see what the differences were with pro engineer. I had a go at creating the lego mans head and I have posted by model above (quite happy with the result for a first go). I found that the basics were the same but Auto Desk seemed bit more intuitive, I also preferred the look of Auto desk. The hardest part of the lego mans head was creating the eyes and mouth these had to be created on another plane then embossed and rapped onto the surface.

Profile nearly finished

I have now finished one side of my specs, all I need to do now is reflect the sketch to create the other side. I now wish that reflected each part as I did them.

Problem Strikes !!!

The following screen shot shows a problem I am having. I have mimicked the inner geometry (arrow) of the wing to form the outer wing shape. I then try to extrude the the inner wing shape but it will not allow me to do this because it says 'The highlighted verticals are very close to each other but not connected via constraints. It may cause trouble with creation of feature geometry. Do you want to add sample point constraint between the highlighted constraint ?"

I click yes and it still will not allow me to extrude the shape.

New rocket shape created

I have developed a new shape for my rocket specs because I was not happy with the first profile. In the first image I have used construction lines to ensure that the rocket is the correct size.

On the second image I have extruded the eye holes and market the wing detail

How to screen grab when you are using windows on a mac

If you are using a Mac keyboard which does not have the PRTSc (Print Screen) button, you can use the on screen keyboard which is in Programs\ Accessories\ Accessibility folder under the start menu

When you run this onscreen keyboard, you can hit Print screen, or Alt- Printscreen to capture either the entire screen, or your active window as required

Rocket Profile

I have been working on the rocket profile today which I am going to mirror and create the whole rocket outline.

One difficulty I have had was trying to get the correct profile using the spline tools, I tried 3 or 4 times but eventually got a profile that was similar to my card design. I was wondering if there was a way you could import a template from Adobe Illustrator into pro engineer to draw around to get the identical rocket profile that I have on my card specs.

Finished the card model for my Rocket concept for the fun glasses dont they look cool

First Few days in School & The Lego Man Project

My first block placement is at Heritage School in Clowne. The School has a big focus on CAD but I have not seen much evidence of CAM to date.

The school does not have a laser but it does have 3 CNC milling machines. The School is moving to a new site in Jan 2011 and the D&T department will have a new CAD / CAM facility. So it is good to see that they are pushing this side of the curriculum forward.

I have posted above some pictures of a year 8 lego man project that they are doing in Auto Desk Inventor, the students have to make a part of the lego man each week and put it together to get a working lego man.

I thought this project was good because the students could relate to the lego man, it was also clear that they were enjoying the lesson and getting on with the modeling with very little help and advice from the teacher due to them having a grasp of the basic concepts of Auto Desk Inventor.

The only downside to the project is that the students did not come away with anything physical at the end of the project. I feel it would of been a good idea for the students to put together display boards of there work and put them on the walls.

some videos posted

I did a quick search on you tube and found some videos, I can relate to some of the processes but it would help if they had some commentary rather than the music

Blog up & running

Blog created........ now all I have to do is install pro engineer :)