Honeycomb Array

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chrisw
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Joined: Sun Mar 15, 2015 11:56 pm
Location: Australia

Honeycomb Array

Post by chrisw »

Hi,
I am trying to model a honeycomb shaped solid whereby I can change the wall thickness and the dimension of the openings later on. So I used the Part Design WB to make a single walled hexagon with parametric dimensions.
Next I tried making a polar array of six of them, but failed because I could not offset the array members to be lined up with the outside walls of my original hexagon.
Then I made a mirrored object with the mirror surface being one of the outside walls. That works, and I did this six times to arrive at this:
hex coaster.FCStd
(66.55 KiB) Downloaded 199 times
Capture.PNG
Capture.PNG (5.79 KiB) Viewed 9955 times
But now I am stuck, I cannot mirror the original hex wall object with one of the outside walls of the larger honeycomb outside walls any more.
As far as I got, everything is linked with the original and changing the dimensions in the one sketch adjusts everything correctly, but now I am out of ideas.

Cheers,

Chris

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wandererfan
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Re: Honeycomb Array

Post by wandererfan »

issue #1141 :(

It's on the list, but I don't have a easy solution for you.

wf
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DeepSOIC
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Re: Honeycomb Array

Post by DeepSOIC »

For a moment, I thought I came up with a method... but it doesn't work. Anyway, it looks cool :mrgreen:
Attachments
hex_tiling_experiment.FCStd
(269.11 KiB) Downloaded 152 times
hex_tiling_experiment.png
hex_tiling_experiment.png (91.67 KiB) Viewed 9919 times
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DeepSOIC
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Re: Honeycomb Array

Post by DeepSOIC »

And sure enough, there is a much simpler method that works 8-)
Attachments
hex_tiling_skewed.png
hex_tiling_skewed.png (150.56 KiB) Viewed 9912 times
hex_tiling_skewed.FCStd
(342.63 KiB) Downloaded 393 times
triplus
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Re: Honeycomb Array

Post by triplus »

Interesting use of Draft PathArray tool.
triplus
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Re: Honeycomb Array

Post by triplus »

I had some spare time therefore this is the result:
Block.png
Block.png (91.04 KiB) Viewed 9855 times
  • Sketcher: Create Sketch with Hexagons
  • PartDesign: Pad
  • Part: Mirror (YZ Plane) and create Pad Mirror
  • Change Sketch Angle Property: 30°
  • Change Pad Mirror Angle Property: 60°
  • Part: Make Compound (Pad + Pad Mirror)
  • Draft: Draft Array on Compound
Result.png
Result.png (73.64 KiB) Viewed 9855 times
  • Sketch (Property View) controls Hexagon Size and Wall Thickness.
  • Draft Array properties Number X and Number Y controls number of copies in each direction.
Limitation:

After changing Hexagon size and/or Wall Thickness user has to manually re-calculate and set properties for Draft Array:

Interval X
x = "hexagon radius" * 3

Interval Y
y = ("hexagon radius" * 2) / 1,1547

This limitation should hopefully be easy to overcome once Spreadsheet PropertyController is re-introduced in FreeCAD!
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PrzemoF
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Re: Honeycomb Array

Post by PrzemoF »

That could help as well since we have OpenSCAD workbench: http://blog.firszt.eu/index.php?post/20 ... rst-battle

TD;DR; Open OpenSCAD wb, click Add OpenSCAD element and paste this: http://firszt.eu/openscad/honeycomb.scad
triplus
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Re: Honeycomb Array

Post by triplus »

Indeed and i made and attached OpenSCAD example:
OpenSCAD.png
OpenSCAD.png (63.72 KiB) Viewed 9792 times
I had some fun with OpenSCAD and followed this interesting tutorial:
Leaf.png
Leaf.png (99.33 KiB) Viewed 9792 times
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bill
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Re: Honeycomb Array

Post by bill »

All these arrays need to be trim(m)able, like ulrich1a 's on page viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9963&p=80657&hilit= ... tal#p80657. With ulrich's, you can bool to trim.

My HoneyComb matrix looks good but blows up during bool operation.

Anyone have a version that is trimable?

I need it for actual bees. :shock:
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quick61
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Re: Honeycomb Array

Post by quick61 »

bill wrote:All these arrays need to be trim(m)able, like ulrich1a 's on page viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9963&p=80657&hilit= ... tal#p80657. With ulrich's, you can bool to trim.

My HoneyComb matrix looks good but blows up during bool operation.

Anyone have a version that is trimable?

I need it for actual bees. :shock:
If I am understanding what you mean by trimmable, then maybe something like this -
Honeycomb.png
Honeycomb.png (30.32 KiB) Viewed 9708 times
Honeycomb.fcstd
(142.66 KiB) Downloaded 380 times
Check the Array for self intersects before attempting any Boolean operations with it. Depending on how you made the array, you may need to make Array Fuse = true like I did with my model to get it to work correctly.

Mark

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