Radio Transmission Tower my version

Good 3D rendering!

Rhino? Is it impossible to do with 123D DESIGN you used for the last models?

jpv in France

When you make one, could you make the file available to all forum members?

Billy C

Alan,

Nice work!  The 3D model will look great.  

When I designed the Korber version, the limitation of laser cutting was basically 2d parts. So the Korber tower does follow prototypes that do exist, but ar not the most common. Th3 use of 2d parts took me to using a 4 sided prototype so the joints at the corners looked right.  The bracing you refers as X is really a Z brace, you will find these are protypical of towers made by Rohn, specifically a Rohn 45G for example.

Also the tapered base sections are designed for self supporting towers, it is rare that these are also guyed.  If you want to guy a tower you would typically use a uniform cross section tower with no taper.  The issue is you would need approximately 70% of the height as the distance to the guy anchors, so on a model rr it would be a lot of space.

Again very nice work on the 3D model.

First 123Design is no longer support by AutoCad; I found it has memory problems for large models. It is more like an advanced issue of TinkerCad. It uses solids that can be added to and subtracted from other solids. Rhino6 is more of a graphical modeling program that uses solids as well but rather creates surfaces that can be capped into solids to create complex models. I am only familiar with about 5% of Rhino commands.

It would be cumbersome to use 123D to model the tower whereas in Rhino I can create polylines of interconnected tower columns and bracing; and then Sweep a circle about the lines to create a tubular construct of the tower to 3D print.

Thanks, Alan, for your answer.

jpv in France

So after some review of Rhino commands I did NOT know,  I decided I could be more accurate with the transmission tower design. So below is the result. Rhino allows you to create a very accurate center-line drawing of the tower locating line segments exactly at end points and mid-points on lines (curves). Then by creating a circle about a line(curve) I can again precisely orient the  tubular shape of each component that I can Sweep along the line. I placed construction lines inside the tower frame to  again align each level of trusses along the height. See resulting tower below.

At top I created connecting pin-and-sockets to connect each tower piece. 

Is all this necessary when I can print with a resolution of 25 microns or 50 microns?? At that resolution can the eye detect small flaws of the first tower design above.

It is one of the nice things about a high resolution printer the models dont need to be THAT accurate. A lot of the 3D prints I do I kind of eye-ball the locations and sizes. Like I would do if I was building by hand.

As a comparison  the twr on the right shows connecting point overlaps