The Gahooa Perspective » SolidWorks

PVC Pipe Bench?

Jason Garber — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 02:44:31 +0000

Someone contacted me about ideas for building a bench for a youth center out of PVC pipe. Based on this information, I thought it should:

Look cool
Be inexpensive to build
Be safe
Comfortable!
Fun

Here is what I came up with as a rough draft. I’m not sure how to position the pipes so that it provides #4 above, but this was a rough guess. I’m using a SPLINE curve in SolidWorks with pipes 3″ on center.

Any ideas about how to make something like this comfortable?

Also, anyone know where to get load calculations for structural use of PVC pipe?

It would be my preference to use thick walled aluminum tubing (or solid rod!) but again, #2 above needs to be satisfied.

Tagged: Bench, CAD, Park Bench, Projects, PVC Pipe, SolidWorks, Structural Pipe, Youth Center

Using Solidworks to design Stepper Motor Assembly (1)

Jason Garber — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:03:40 +0000

Have recently acquiried a nice stepper motor from Jameco Electronics. It is a small motor, less than 2″x2″x2″, but still has substantial torque. I will get into more Arduino + Circuits + Electro-Mechanical detail soon, but for the moment, I wished to share a couple of screen-shots of the 3D model and the actual parts that I am modeling and assembling.

In this model, I’m (quite happily) making heavy use cross-part references in the assembly. I caught onto that concept by reading the Top Down Design Overview at the SolidWorks website.

Tagged: Aluminum, Bearings, Bushings, CAD, Design, Engineering, Macro Photography, Mechanical Engineering, Shafts, SolidWorks, Stepper Motors

Rubber Band Gun #6 and Pro/Engineer Wildfire

Jason Garber — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 05:24:27 +0000

I recently purchased a copy of Pro/Engineer Wildfire 5.0, and have been comparing it to SolidWorks. They are both nice programs, and within about a day, I have achieved about the same level of usefulness in ProE as SolidWorks. (Note: all that means is that I am a beginner at this).

Anyway, I wished to share one of the models I’m working on. This is a mechanism for a Rubber Band Gun receiver.

Tagged: Pro/Engineer, ProE, Rubber Band, Rubber Band Gun, SolidWorks, Wildfire

New Wooden Gun Project

Jason Garber — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 19:25:28 +0000

In our workshop, we have been designing a new toy wooden gun model in SolidWorks. This is inspired by the classic Thompson Machine Gun from the early 1900′s in the US.

We will probably make it out of maple or walnut, and either paint or stain it.

Tagged: .45, 3D modeling, SolidWorks, Thompson, Thompson Machine Gun, Toy Gun