Help creating a mold / mandrel

[atoff]

Hello all, haven't been here in a while, as I've been a bit too unwell to play with my printer, but I'm slowly trying to get back into it all. It's good to see familiar faces still active. Anyway, I've been trying to set up a new pc with rigid tubing for a watercooling loop, and I need to bend tubing to a specific shape. I brought my Rostock Max V2 out of retirement to help me create the tools. I've managed to create some 45 and 90 degree mandrels to bend my tubing, but this one curve is a little tricky, so I was hoping to create a mold, so to speak, for it.

Anyway, having a hard time figuring out how to do that. I've created the tube in solidworks, but that's as far as I've come.

Here are examples of the mandrels I've already created:

http://i.imgur.com/60fTzFh.jpg

And this is the tube that needs to have a sort of mandrel like the above:

http://i.imgur.com/SfQ82RR.png

I'm open to use other software if it'll make it easier. I can export that to another filetype.

I tried doing a sweep cut from the path into a cube, but this is what happened:

http://i.imgur.com/OtIjXUQ.png


Appreciate any help I can get with this, it's driving me mad.

[IMBoring25]

Use the mandrels you already have twice.

[atoff]

Use the mandrels you already have twice.

That's what I originally created them for, but the bends are too tight, it didn't work. I really need to do it in one shot, and creating this mold would be the best chance of it working.

[Captain Starfish]

The subtract result looks sensible considering what you've done. Maybe, instead of a circle, if you swept a semicircle bolted onto a square, it would be deep enough to cut the block completely and have shoulders wide enough to take the tube.

[atoff]

The subtract result looks sensible considering what you've done. Maybe, instead of a circle, if you swept a semicircle bolted onto a square, it would be deep enough to cut the block completely and have shoulders wide enough to take the tube.

I see what you're saying. Create a half circle, with a rectangle on the flat of the circle, that way when I cut it'll cut out a notch along the top, right?
The only problem is that when I do the sweep cut it twists. I'm not sure how to keep it so the flat is always on top. It's a good idea though, and a step forward. Maybe if I can figure out how to keep it from twisting, it'll work.

[atoff]

So, I THINK I've got it. I was playing around with it for what seemed like hours. I put a 1 inch fillet on the edge THEN created the sweep cut, and that seemed to give a better result.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/uLsNmsz.png[/img]

No idea if this will actually work, but I have to print solid, so I'll know in the morning.

[Captain Starfish]

Depends on your CAD package. You might also be able to copy/paste the path you're sweeping along with an offset and do the same with that shape such that there's a shape at either end of the paths and one path connects the middle of the arc and the other the centre of the opposite flat on the square, then loft the part instead of sweeping it.

[atoff]

Depends on your CAD package. You might also be able to copy/paste the path you're sweeping along with an offset and do the same with that shape such that there's a shape at either end of the paths and one path connects the middle of the arc and the other the centre of the opposite flat on the square, then loft the part instead of sweeping it.

Thanks, I finally managed it though. Just using the fillet and then sanding the edges down a bit.

And results

[img]http://i.imgur.com/6LFdWsc.jpg[/img]