my belt sander is homemade as well uses 4 by 36 belts the driver and idler is made of 6061 and hasa crown machined into them to track the belt-ive made a lot of my stuff -id love to have a tig with a water cooled torch i have 2 tigs 2 migs --after a while a person gets so much stuff that the space of the garage becomes the problem

I personally prefer my cnc over a manual mill, especially since I can use the keyboard and use it like a manual mill. I'm still looking for a small manual mill for secondary operations and when I just need to do something simple. Everything has it's place, and most people/businesses end up catering to what their tools allow them to do. I do a lot of small part and for me through put is very important, I couldn't achieve the same production levels without a cnc machine. Typically when I am in the shop it goes as follow:

CNC mill running 30+ minute cycles
Me operating the larger manual lathe
Small lathe running on autofeed
Tumbler deburring parts
Bandsaw cutting stock to length for future jobs.

I also find that CAD really helps when designing complex parts from scratch that require a lot of reworking and test fitting. I still rely on regular drawings though for simply one offs. Really it just comes down to finding the right tool(s) for the job, and thats going to be different for everyone.

i have to say its a blessing just having the ability and the means to be able to think up a way to make what i want or need without having to pay to have it done .i dont think i ever make the same thing more than once-unless i make a pair of something that is -and no matter how many machines i have (or tooling )i always yearn to have more.there are always good and bad with anything in life -if i ran coolant on my bridgeport it would make a mega mess as that mill is within 6 feet of the door to my house from my garage . to have an enclosed cnc with coolant would be a tool saver and a time save thats for sure.its kind of like making parts from 6061 or 416 stainless ---night and day --i make apart for other every now and then but my shop is mostly for me -helps to have a job as a machinist as well---

Wow gearhead thanks for taking this thread way off topic dude....

This thread is about solidworks not your gloating.

To make a point both items I made in solidworks are with the sheet metal tool, it’s not just for machinists, but fabricators in general.

exactly why i want to start using it.

We use solidworks for our formula SAE car and we all love it. We start everybody off by doing the tutorials as they really do teach you a lot. Our baja team uses inventor but they want to switch over to solidworks but it was basically a stubborn guy that finally graduated that was stopping them. Also, a neat thing to do is there are websites that you can submit your models too that will give you a quote to have it rapid prototyped. I can't remember the website off hand but it's fun to make a scaled down part just to show around at the shop.

Being a machinist it may be nice to be able to do everything from your head, but there's no way I could walk up to a company and describe the parts we get made without taking hours. Obviously we lack experience but it's so much easier to just send a company a model for them to look over then try and make 30 different drawings.

FSAE is full tube chasis right? Thats really cool, I'm trying to get into welding/fab right now (I'm a mechanical inspector ATM, boring as hell lol) Hopefully I'll be getting a Millermatic 211 in Oct. but we'll see what happens.

I use a slightly older version of Solidworks daily, very easy to use software. I use it for conceptual drawings of multi part assemblies for myself or work.

As for this interesting manual machining vs CNC, they both have their places, i myself would choose to use a cnc machine over a manual 90% of the time, but i know people who are exactly the opposite

-Jacob

I'm using SW 2010 now (FSAE as well). I've used Pro-E, SW and some CATIA. I like SW the best mostly because I have the most experience with it. It has been great for beginners too from what I've seen. It's pretty intuitive and if you need to figure out something new there are tons of tutorials.

I do intake design for my FSAE team (as well as a shit ton of other things).
The lower manifold is CNC milled plate / welded tube, the upper is rapid prototyped glass filled nylon, restrictor is composite, throttle body is roller barrel made by me on an old school mill and lathe. Everyone has their way they like but to have it all at your disposal and get to learn the advantages and disadvantages of each method is one of the best things about formula/school. It's a burden and a privilege, we have all this equipment but 1/10 the budget of most of the other schools around. Half the time we make things simply because we can't afford to buy instead of taking full advantage of being able to make almost anything we end up spending a lot of time making things most teams just buy.

https://img683.imageshack.us/img683/1486/intakep.jpg

https://i949.photobucket.com/albums/...0/DSCN1684.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._1686838_n.jpg

https://img197.imageshack.us/img197/945/bellflow.jpg

Interesting. Care to elaborate on that manifold? Also looks like it is plastic. Do you guys have a 3d printer?

We have to run a 20mm intake restrictor with the throttle up-stream. That is the reason for the venturi nozzle. I use GT-Power engine simulation software (hundreds of simulations) to come up with an intake and exhaust design. It's a 1D simulation software so you get basic flow and acoustic tuning. A really accurate model will give you almost spot on power curve, we're still working on perfecting our engine model. I didn't have much time to get into manifold CFD simulation but that is my challenge this year now that I have a handle on the engine simulation software. Yep the upper manifold is 3D printed from glass filled nylon. We don't have a printer but we have some great sponsors that hook us up.

madbouncy are you with the Illini team?

I'm guessing this 3D printing is like what we used to call stereo lithography except the parts are more durable? I'm intrigued by how many of you guys like SW. The engineers where I work don't seem as impressed. They seem to prefer UG, ProE, and Kubotech but i don't know.

I've been following this thread because I know it's a lot more inexpensive than the others and considering getting it..

Same principle as SL but little different process. This this is SLS, laser cooks the layers. It's seriously strong. We dropped a valve at 10K rpm 2 hours before we planned to pack up the car and head to comp. I was washing piston parts out of the intake at 4AM no damage at all. Throw in the dyno motor, transfer manifolds and wiring and no one would know other than "dyno" written in sharpie on the valve cover... :D

We know the feeling about basically building the car on your way to comp. This is our third year so we're still getting a feel for getting stuff done in time. We also have the same budget issue and we don't have much for machines either. The machine shop at school has specific people to run it and we can ask them for stuff but we're low priority. We basically try and get everything laser cut (sponser does it for us) and then we have a tig welder. Our first car was literaly 90% parts from a honda civic, turned out to be really heavy but it worked.

Any chance you did your teams oil pan? I'm working on making ours right now since we're finally starting to corner hard enough to starve our engine. Here is what I have so far.

http://i1044.photobucket.com/albums/.../Oil_Pan_4.jpg

http://i1044.photobucket.com/albums/.../Oil_Pan_3.jpg

http://i1044.photobucket.com/albums/.../Oil_Pan_2.jpg

http://i1044.photobucket.com/albums/.../Oil_Pan_1.jpg

Madbouncy- How are you going to justify, to the design judges, your decision to stay with the wet sump? I would get a dry sump. One major advantage of a dry sump system is that it allows for a shorter oil pan which allows the engine to be mounted closer to the ground. This creates a lower center of gravity which leads directly to improved vehicle performance. Other advantages of a dry sump include constant oil pressure during turning, increased horsepower by creating negative pressure in the crankcase, the elimination of power robbing windage, lower oil temperate, and the ability to use less oil thus saving weight. Contact Dailey Engineering. His pumps are better than Pace's.

Dry sump is great but it's definitely out of our budget. Maybe down the line we can have somebody devote some time to it and get the bulk of the cost sponsored, but we have enough stuff going on now that it's definitely not an option for this year. Plus, we can get all the parts for the pan machined and welded for free and maybe, if we're lucky, get some of the raw material from sponsors. Either way, aluminum is always good to have and we have more parts that will be made out of the same thicknesses so we would have to buy the sheets for that stuff anyways. The engine was still able to be lowered a full inch and the judges will be fine with that since they understand that not everything on the car can be made perfect in one year, especially on a very tight budget.