Solidworks Spinner Design

Adventures in Manufacturing

This tutorial will guide you through the steps to design a spinner in Solidworks.

We’ll start by modeling a basic spinner, then, we’ll design our own counterweights

to be machined. We’ll make a dimensioned print for the counterweight, which you

will use while machining. Last, I’ll do some customization that can help guide you

while you customize your spinner design.

This document was created for the Adventures in Manufacturing summer camp and was made

possible by funds allocated by Clackamas ESD. This document is licensed under a Creative

Commons Attribution 4.0 license. You may change this document as you see fit for your needs

and you may use it for commercial use. Please give credit to OpenFab PDX and provide a link to

OpenFab’s resources page (link below) in the version you create. If you would like an editable

.docx file, please check my website: www.openfabpdx.com/resources

1. Sketch your spinner on paper.

The best habit you can have as a CAD junkie is to sketch things before you start

modeling on the computer. This is true whether you are copying something or

creating something totally new. Don’t worry AT ALL about making a nice-looking

sketch or recording all the dimensions. You can always go back and add info if

needed. First, sketch a plain old spinner. While you’re sketching, think about

something you might want to do to make your spinner different from most. Jot

down any notes you think of, along with a quick sketch.

2. Open Solidworks.

I’m using Solidworks 2015 for this tutorial. You’re probably using a different version.

Most of the tools we use will be the same, but the user interface may look different.

3. Select file>>new, and then click to select a new part.

4. Take a minute to orient to the workspace.

Solidworks is complicated. There are a lot of buttons. It’s both powerful and

overwhelming! Let’s take a minute to discuss what’s what (I’ll do this in person).

First, show the planes by right clicking them in the browser and left clicking on the

eyeglass icon show.

Now you can navigate the 3D space. Left click to select an object or feature and

right click to open a menu of options. The middle mouse button is your

navigating button. Hold it and move the mouse to rotate the view. Hold the

Ctrl + middle mouse to pan the view. Zoom in and out by scrolling the wheel.

Moving the view so that you can see what you need to see is super important!

Practice navigating the space whenever you can. Eventually it will be second nature

and you’ll spin things around on a screen like a professional engineer.

5. Create a sketch.

We will make our spinner by sketching it and then performing an extrude operation

to make our sketch 3-dimensional. All sketches happen on a flat plane or face. This

one will be on the Front Plane.

Right click the Front Plane and click on the Sketch symbol.

Sometimes it’s hard to know if you are in a sketch or not. If you see that you have

the option to Exit Sketch, then you’re in one. That looks like this

in the top left corner and like this

on the top right hand corner. You will click Exit Sketch in either corner (not the red X)

to save the sketch and exit the sketch environment, but don’t do that yet.

6. Draw your spinner (but only a part)

We’re going to draw one leg of the spinner that contains the center bearing and

counterweight. Then, after we extrude the sketch, we’ll use a pattern feature to

make the other legs.

Start by drawing circles. Click the circle tool in the Sketch toolbar. Highlighted here:

Now, hover your mouse curser over the origin point. It should snap to the origin.

Left click to set the center of your circle. Then drag the mouse out to about 0.5”

radius and left click to set the size of the circle. Don’t worry about exact dimensions.

Now, select the Smart Dimension tool from the toolbar.

Click the edge of your circle, then left click again off to the side to bring up the

Smart Dimension box. Our bearings are 22mm in diameter. Set your diameter to be

a bit bigger: 22.3mm will do the trick. Even if you’re designing in inches, go ahead

and type in “22.3mm”. Solidworks will convert it to inches for you.

Great! This circle represents the hole that your bearing will press into. Now, draw

more circles and add dimensions to match the image below. To dimension between

circles, select Smart Dimension, click the edge of one circle, then click the edge of the

other, then left click off to the side to bring up the dialog box.

Left click and hold the center of the right hand circles. Notice how you can move it

all around? We want to lock it in place. First, we’ll apply a horizontal constraint, then

a dimension.

Click the center point of one set of circles. Then press and hold the Ctrl key. Click

the other center point. Release the control key and a menu should pop up. If it

doesn’t right click the point you just selected. From that menu, click the horizontal

line that means Make Horizontal.

Little green symbols by the points should pop up. These are your sketch

constraints.

Now click the arrow to open the line dropdown on your toolbar. Select the

Centerline tool.

Draw a line between the center points of each circle. Left click one point, then the

other.

We’ll use that line in a bit. Now click the point tool on the sketch toolbar. Hover over

the outside edge of your right hand side circle – you should be able to snap to the

furthest outside point of the circle. Left click to set a point there.

Now select the Smart Dimension tool again. Set a dimension of 1.6” from the center

of the left hand circle (at the origin) to that outermost edge. This sets the overall

size of your spinner. For me, 1.6” makes it bigger than I would like. We’re going to

change that dimension later.

These two sets of circles represent the plastic that will hold your bearing and

counterweight in place. For now, we’re going to design for another bearing as a

counterweight. Later we’ll change the sketch to use the custom counterweight.

Now let’s sketch in the curve that joins these two. We’ll model a spline curve, and

then mirror that spline to connect on both sides. First, we need to find the points

where we want the splines to connect to the outer circles. I did some experimenting

and will guide you through the simplest approach for a three-lobed spinner.

Draw a centerline on each circle set and a connecting centerline, like this:

Press the Esc key to stop drawing centerlines and exit the tool.

Notice that the top centerline (connecting) has a horizontal constraint. If yours

doesn’t, select it, and set Make Horizontal.

Now set the dimension of one line to be 60 degrees from horizontal using Smart

Dimension:

Notice that the other centerline turns black. This indicates that it is fixed, or fully

constrained.

Now select the spline tool. Splines let you draw curvy lines that you can easily

control.

Click the leftmost point on that top connecting line, then double click the rightmost

point on the same line. You’ll have a straight spline, like this:

The arrows and dots that show in grey are your spline handles. You use these to

control the shape of the spline. Grab one of the dots on the end of the arrow and

pull: see what it does? Now select both the spline and the circle it is connected to

and constrain them to be tangent. Do that for both circles and you get this:

You can now only change the magnitude of the spline handles. Try it to see what

happens, then make it balanced like shown, above.

Now we need to mirror this spline so that we have it top and bottom. To do this,

select the Mirror Entities tool on the toolbar.

Over on the left hand side of your screen you’ll see this dialog:

Left click the spline you made to add it to the Entities to mirror box. Then, click the

Mirror about box to select it. Then, left click the centerline between the circles

(between the center points) to make that your mirror line. Click the green check

mark to commit the mirror. You should see this:

Now you have two splines, and they are constrained to be mirror images of each

other. Your sketch is done!!

7. Extrude to make it 3D

Your sketch sets the basic geometry of your spinner and you can go back and

change it at any time. After you make this basic design, you will go back to this

sketch, make edits, and your spinner will instantly update reflect the changes. It’s

cool when it works!

We are going to extrude your sketch geometry. To do that, click over to the Features

tab on the toolbar. If you’re in your sketch (haven’t exited the sketch) you’ll see a

few options that are not greyed out. Left click Extruded Boss to extrude material.

Extruded Cut takes away material.

My Extruded Boss dialog is shown below. Make yours match by selecting Mid Plane

for Direction 1, set D1, your total extrusion depth, to 7mm (the thickness of the

bearing), then click on the box under Selected Contours and left click all of the areas

you wish to extrude. These are shown in pink, below.

Click the checkmark to close the dialog and commit the extrude. Now you should

see one leg of your spinner! This extruded object is called a body.

8. Pattern the body

Now we will use the Circular Pattern tool to pattern the body we just made. Click the

dropdown arrow under Linear Pattern and select Circular Pattern.

Once the pattern dialog pops up, notice that if you hover over the input boxes

Solidworks will tell you what it wants there. Click the check mark next to Bodies.

This will pattern the solid body you just made, not a face or feature. Next, select the

bearing hole centered at the origin as the pattern axis. Select the solid body as the

body to be patterned. Tell Solidworks to pattern 3 instances over 360 degrees. My

dialog looks like this:

Click the checkmark to commit and pattern the body. Notice now that you have

three solid bodies listed in your browser:

9. Combine the bodies to form a single body

Now we will use the Combine tool to make our three bodies a single body. Under

the Direct Editing toolbar, select the Combine tool.

In the dialog, make sure Add is the operation. Then left click on the three separate

bodies to add them in the Bodies to Combine box.

Green checkmark to commit.

10. Refine your edges

We’re basically done! You could print this as is and have a working spinner. Let’s

add some features on the edges to make the spinner a little nicer in the hand. We

will be using the Fillet and Chamfer tools in the Direct Editing toolbar. First, select the

Chamfer tool.

Select any exterior edges (not the hole edges). Solidworks will automatically select

the tangent edges, which should select the full loop around the spinner. Let me

know if it doesn’t! Enter 0.05” for the dimension. Green checkmark to commit.

Now select the Fillet tool. Select the innermost two edges on the outside faces of

the spinner, I.E. the ones that wouldn’t touch the table if you set it down.

Enter 0.1” for the dimension. Green checkmark to commit.

Nice work! This would be a good, standard spinner that would use three bearings

as counterweights.

But we want to design counterweights to machine…

Part 2: Counterweights and Making Changes

1. Go back in time.

Solidworks and other parametric modeling programs give you the ability to go back

and change any sketches or features that you created. It’s awesome, and a

complete pain! Solidworks is notorious for throwing what feels like thousands of

broken features at you after you make a hole smaller early in your timeline. You will

get a taste of both the power of this approach and the pain.

The browser on the left hand side of your screen contains a lot of information.

We’re only going to use the Design Tree, which is what you have displayed now. The

Design Tree has a blue line at the bottom. You can move it – try hovering over the

line. You should see your mouse cursor change to pinchy fingers. When you see

that, left click and hold, and drag that line above the Fillet and Chamfer features we

made.

You’ll see that the features grey out and the spinner no longer shows them. Now,

leave the timeline bar where it is. We want to edit the first sketch we made.

Solidworks hid that sketch under the Extruded Boss feature. Click the + sign next to

that first Boss-Extrude feature. Now left or right click the sketch and select Edit

Sketch. If your view doesn’t automatically center on the sketch, press Ctrl-8.

Start by deleting the length constraint (1.6), the 0.11” dimension on the right hand

side, and change the diameter of the right hand circle to 0.95”.

Now add a vertical line on the counterweight side.

Add a point and dimension as shown:

0.95

Now draw another circle and two more vertical lines:

Dimension as shown. I have added five dimensions here to constrain the

counterweight side.

Let’s clean this up a little…select the Trim Entities tool from the toolbar.

Now left click and hold, then swipe the cursor over the three arc segments outside of your

furthest out vertical line. You end up with this:

OK, let’s take a minute. What’s going on here?

The center bearing side is the same. On the counterweight side we now have a D shaped

counterweight that you will machine. The innermost D shape is the counterweight,

dimensioned as 0.95” in diameter and 0.7” from the flat face. Then, we have an offset of

0.010” that gives some space for a good fit with the 3D print. Lastly, we give 0.110” for the

print material thickness.

For now, let’s make the counterweight outline construction geometry. Select the sketch

elements (circle and line) that make up the innermost D shape. Select Construction

Geometry to convert. Now these won’t “count” as geometry that you can extrude.

Now your sketch should look like this:

Exit sketch and let’s see what happens! Here’s what I got:

Well, that looks kind of cool, but it’s not quite what I want. We’re missing the outer leg that

closes off the D shape. We need to edit the Boss-Extrude feature.

2. Fix rebuild errors.

Right click the Boss-Extrude in the browser and select Edit Feature.

Hmm…there are a lot of colors here… What’s going on is that Solidworks isn’t sure what

sketch profiles we want to use for our extrude feature. Let’s just start fresh – right click in

the Selected Contours box and select Clear Selections. Then, click each area that we want to

extrude to add to the Selected Contours.

Green checkmark to exit the feature and rebuild. You should see this:

If you don’t, take a closer look – what sketch contours are not being extruded? Edit Feature

again and add the missing contours to the existing list.

Now let’s move all the way forward in our timeline. Grab that blue line in the browser and

pull it down to the end.

I got my first feature failure! The red lettering indicates that there is a broken feature. In

this case, Solidworks thinks that the Fillet feature is broken. But – if we look at the model,

we can see that there are not chamfers where there should be. Why is that? Let’s Edit

Feature for the Chamfer feature.

What I notice is that the chamfer does not propagate around the spinner. This is because

we have sharp corners on the ends of the D shape – the chamfer won’t continue past a

sharp corner. We have two options: 1. Simply select the other edges to force chamfers on

all edges. 2. Add fillets on the sharp edges to allow the chamfer to propagate. I like option

2, but you can do either. Here’s what you get with option 1:

Not bad. But I’d like to see what it looks like with rounded corners. So exit the chamfer

feature. Move the timeline above the chamfer feature and select Fillet to create a new fillet

feature. Add 0.1” radius fillets to all exterior corners:

Green checkmark and then pull the timeline past the chamfer feature. You should get this:

Compare this to option 1. Which do you like? If you go with this option, you can now pull

the timeline to the end and the last fillet should automatically update correctly.

Nice work! Your spinner is ready to print for a D shaped counterweight!

3. Extrude the counterweight

Now let’s extrude the counterweight. This is easy. Create a new sketch on the top/front face

of the spinner. Click Sketch on the Sketch toolbar and then left click the top of the spinner

to select that flat face. Now we will project the counterweight geometry we created in our

first sketch. To do that, right click that first sketch in the browser (remember it’s hiding

under the Boss-Extrude). Select the eyeglasses symbol to Show the sketch. You can see now

that the sketch is visible in grey:

Select Convert Entities from the toolbar. Then, click the innermost D shape (the one that’s

the dashed lines indicating construction geometry).

Green checkmark. Now that geometry is copied into your new sketch. If you change it in

the first sketch it will automatically update in this new one. Hide the first sketch for clarity.

(right click -> eyeglasses)

Now select Extruded Boss on the Features toolbar.

Solidworks thinks I want to do a thin feature extrude. I do not. Un-check the Thin Feature

selection. Click the Selected Contours drop down and add the D shape contour. Now, under

Direction 1, select To Surface and select the bottom flat face of the spinner.

You can see in the preview that the D shape counterweight will extrude to the thickness of

our spinner. Perfect! Green checkmark. I changed some colors (I’ll show you how in

person). Now we have this:

4. Pattern the counterweight

We did this earlier, so I’ll be vague on instructions. Create a circular pattern. Remember to

pattern Bodies. Pattern the counterweight body three times in 360 degrees. And…

Nice work! Now we’re going to stop modeling and transition into creating a drawing.

Part 3: Make a Dimensioned Drawing

In order to machine your counterweight, you need a piece of paper that tells you what it

looks like, what the dimensions are, and how closely you need to match those dimensions.

The how close part – those are called tolerances. Let’s crank out a quick drawing.

1. Save counterweight body out into new part

In the browser, under Solid Bodies, right click one of the counterweight bodies and select

Insert into New Part.

Click the … next to part name. Select your directory and save the part as Counterweight.

Press enter, then green checkmark. Solidworks automatically creates a new part.

2. Create drawing

Select File -> Make New Drawing from Part/Assembly

From the menu, un-check Only show standard formats if you need to, and select A (ANSI)

Landscape format.

Press OK and you’re ready to put views on your drawing.

3. Place views

From the right hand side, left click and hold the Front view, or whichever view is straight-on

the D shape.

Place the following views, and arrange them in about these positions:

Now let’s add dimensions. We want to fully define all dimensions of this part. That includes

the diameter, the thickness, and some way to define the flat section. What is the best way

to define that flat? We could do the length of the flat, the distance of the flat from the

diameter (how much material is machined off), the distance from the circle center point, or

the distance from the opposite outer edge to the flat. Always try to choose dimensions that

are easy to measure and validate! For us, that’s the distance from the flat to the opposite

edge.

Use the smart dimension tool, much like you do in sketches. Note that for the flat

measurement you need to add a point on the outer edge. Do not dimension the isometric

view in the top right corner. That’s there mainly as a reference image.

Now this isn’t the only way to dimension this part, but it makes sense to me. I like to spread

my dimensions out to several views if possible. The fewer dimensions on any single view,

the easier the print is to read.

4. Add tolerances

Most prints use a default tolerance that corresponds to how many significant figures a

given dimension contains. We’re going to add tolerances to each dimension for clarity. To

do that, double click the dimension to which you’d like to add a tolerance. We can use

symmetric tolerances, but take a look at all the options.

Here’s what I chose as my tolerances. Remember that if your counterweights are very

different in mass your spinner won’t spin smoothly!

5. Edit title block and print attributes

Right click anywhere on your print and select Edit Sheet Format. The drawings disappear

and the boxes at the bottom show blue. Now you edit them and add information. Most

boxes contain text boxes – double click them to edit.

To my print I deleted the drawing number, added a title, marked it revision 1, put my

initials and today’s date, and specified a material and finish.

Now right click again and select Edit Sheet. You’re done! Save the drawing as Counterweight,

then Save As a pdf. Print the pdf and have a neighbor review your print for accuracy, typos,

etc. Have the reviewer initial and date in the appropriate boxes.

Part 4: Make an Assembly

Solidworks has three types of files: parts, drawings, and assemblies. Assemblies are as they

sound – a collection of parts arranged together. We don’t need to make one, but let’s do it

quickly for kicks.

1. Create an Assembly

Go back to your spinner part, where you did all the design work. You can close the drawing

and counterweight windows. Once you’re back at the spinner, select File Make Assembly

from Part/Assembly.

Don’t click anything! Read the message that pops up in the dialog.

Simply hit OK or green checkmark. The spinner will come into the assembly and locate at

the origin (which is perfect). Save the assembly.

The spinner contains counterweights, but we need a bearing and bearing caps. We don’t

need to model the bearing, let’s find it on the internet.

2. Import a bearing model

Go to www.mcmaster.com in a web browser. Search for “608 bearing” and find your

favorite. Find the download CAD link on the part detail page and select “3D-Solidworks”

from the file type options. Download the file.

Now, back in your assembly, click on Insert Components. Click browse, and find your

downloaded bearing file. Once you click OK to select the file, notice that you can wave your

mouse around on the screen to place the bearing. Then, bring your mouse back over the

dialog box. The bearing should snap into place at the origin. That’s what we want, so green

checkmark it.

3. Make some caps

Spinner body, counterweights, bearing – you just need caps for the bearing. Here my

instruction ends! You can find some files of caps on my website. Or design your own. Figure

out how to do that in the context of your assembly.