Path Length Control?

[MJuric]

I have a situation where I have a "Square Spiral" path in a sketch. This "Path" needs to change length based on the size of part it is associated with. What I'm attempting to do is to have the start point of the path and the end point of the path remain in the same relative position to the part but have the distance between each leg of the spiral remain with in a certain range.

So on a small part you might have three "Legs of the spiral" while on a large part you might have five legs of the spiral.

Can any of you bright individuals think of a way to do this without a macro? I can't use a macro because I'm using this in driveworks Express and it won't run macros.

I looked at a path length dimensions but that will not go any further than the first corner as it requires the removal of an entity. I *think* I could do this with a spline but since this is going to be a cam path instead of a simple arc at the corners I would have 10 pages of G-Code for each corner...which I don't want either. So what I'm looking for would be something like this.

Big part

Little path

[matt]

You might be able to have a sketch in the background that has the biggest "square spiral" that you're going to need, and then convert entities and trim a section of it for use. I'll see if I can make an example.

[matt]

If this is useful, I'll explain how I did it. If not, nevermind. The configurations are driven by the distance of the last side from the origin. It isn't driven by a path length, but you can probably get that in an equation or a lookup table, or come up with an inelegant by hidden method. This uses a surface trim to make the geometry, but it could just as easily be a solid feature. You have to click on the image to get the gif to play because it's over the size limit and gets thumbnailed.

[MJuric]

If this is useful, I'll explain how I did it. If not, nevermind. The configurations are driven by the distance of the last side from the origin. It isn't driven by a path length, but you can probably get that in an equation or a lookup table, or come up with an inelegant by hidden method. This uses a surface trim to make the geometry, but it could just as easily be a solid feature. You have to click on the image to get the gif to play because it's over the size limit and gets thumbnailed.


zzz.gif

Hmmm, to be honest I'm not sure. Couple things I'm not sure about.

1) I have two options I would have to mess with as far as the creation.
a) I could insert a part into my base Driveworks model with those configurations and drive the configurations with Driveworks
b) I might be able to do the same thing with driveworks without configurations
2) I'm not sure how my tool path will react to that. Since the entity that was the original start point is no longer there I have no idea if that will just explode the tool path or not.

I'll have to play with that and see what I can come up with.

[MJuric]

So I actually found something that works for what I'm trying to do.

In the Driveworks model I put the largest possible spiral I will ever need. I also place the CAM path on that spiral.

In the formula's in the driveworks model I alter the spiral to match the needs of the part being generated and locate a "Trim line" in the same sketch.

When the model is generated all you need to do is to go in and trim/extend the start point of the spiral to the generated trim line, it's in the correct position since it was put there by Driveworks, delete anything not need and regen the path in CAMWorks...done.