I am working on a project of vertical farms broken down into several floors, the floors must be screwed on top of each other. The goal is to create these vertical farms by 3D printing. So I started with a 3mm thickness of plastic.
The trusses will be cylinders of 300mm in diameter and 195mm in height, 20mm at the top and bottom of each floor will be reserved for threading.
Inside these cylinders, there will be grooves that will have to be aligned because they are used to irrigate the plants. There must also be 2 positions for the thread so that the cells containing the plants do not have one on top of the other.
My problem is that I don't know how to make a thread so that the 2 stages are fixed between them.
I have so far made this thread with the SW2016 Thread function and going on an M30 with an 8mm pitch so that I only have to make 2 and a half turns to screw the stages together. I also put 0.2 mm of clearance in the thread (printer accuracy at 0.1mm).
I would like to know if my thread is good and if there is a way to be precise enough so that I can line up the grooves.
Attached is a folder of screenshots of the system.
I think your main (I was going to say only) problem is the fact that you need to have a 36° offset between two floors.
As a result, it answers your question ""know if my thread is good" and the answer is "no".
Why not! If your thread starts for all parts in the same place then all parts will be aligned.
I would not give advice but an opinion:
1°) You should not do this type of threading but rather take inspiration from instant coffee lids where screwing and clipping is done in a quarter turn. You have functions natively in solidworks for clipping plastic
2°) As for the positioning with a 36° offset, it is sufficient to make four threads in opposition, two of which are offset by 36°.
3°) for the grooves intended for irrigation I think it's a false problem because they are useless. Let me explain: in one of the views, we see 3 floors with apparently no background on each floor. As a result, it is assumed that the superimposed containers form a single cylinder filled with substrate, so if you put soil in all the "N" floors, only capillary action and gravitation will ensure the irrigation of the bottom. The base will always be more irrigated than the upper floors as in the basic flower pot. If there is a bottom or part of a bottom between each floor, the capillarity of the substrate is sufficient, not to mention that your grooves will be clogged and therefore useless if you use soil or potting soil.
I suggest you rethink your model so that there isn't that outer shoulder between each floor that's a bit ugly. In addition, because your model will be made in 3D printing, you have more freedom since you don't have to worry about undercuts. You can even consider making irregular shifts between each floor depending on your mood or that of your buyers. Depending on the diameter of your room, you can even have anti-ovalization reinforcements without it being visible and hindering plant growth.
Can you post your model indicating your version of SW? Because as one of my very appreciated colleagues would say, "we don't all have the same version of SolidWorks.
@gt22 Thank you for your answer, This solution seems perfect to me to be sure to have continuity in the grooves. After that, the customer wants to have as few parts as possible so I'll still try to dig on the parts screwing together, but I'm keeping this solution in mind.
@Zozo_mp Thank you for your answer, One of my main problems is indeed to have a gap between each floor. Each floor is composed of 5 cells to accommodate plants (customer request). In each of these cells, the plants will be placed in mosses and there will be no soil in the floors, the mosses will collect the water brought by the grooves to transmit them to the plants. Grooves of the same type were present on the old model and apparently worked well (the customer does not want to change this function at this time). To avoid all the stages being aligned, I put 2 threads on each stage, offset by 180° from each other. This allows me to have 2 possible screwing positions and therefore not to have my cells aligned between each floor. The vertical trusses will consist of about ten floors with an upper lid and a lower lid (conical shaped). The clipping function was present on the old stages but was too fragile, so he wants to switch to a screw-type fastener (even if a lock will be necessary to keep the grooves aligned). The soluble coffee type screwing seems to me to be more precise, but after looking at the one in my nutella jar, I see that it is composed of a thread in the male part but also a thread in the female part and not a tap. I haven't found a standard or a way to do it for this type of screwing by looking a little on the internet, I'm interested if there is any information on this way even if I'll continue to dig.
Attached is the 3D model of a floor made with SW2016 x64, if need another version, tell me.
Excuse me for not having given all the information from the beginning.
If you allow me and with your kind and sympathetic permission, I ask your high benevolence for permission to disagree with you, and this on an exceptional basis of course.
It is not by chance that I spoke of clipping: because there is clipping and clipping: in other words, there are those that do not clip much and those that are well elaborated and do their job. I suggested the example of the instant coffee lid (here Nescafé) because it is more sophisticated than the Nutella one which is just a simple quarter-turn screw thread. (for the NES the glass bottle is square and the lid is square). I could have taken the plastic parts from the toilet flushes, and from many assemblies in the automobile precisely where the parts are difficult to disassemble, etc...
Personally, if I had to solve this problem, I would combine the screw thread that allows you to put the upper and lower part side by side with a smart clip. The two combined ensure that the clip does not break and that the 1/4 turn thread ensures a controllable edge-to-edge connection. You will note in passing that the quarter turn allows the upper part to be presented according to several offsets. In addition, the watering grooves will also have to be opposite each other since the position of the threads is totally predictable (there are four possible positions per turn) I also think that you can have an excellent external appearance if the two cylinders are tangent without blistering as in the free interpretation of @Franck (which I salute by the way ;-) )
