Can Opener
For this post I decided to make something that we all have used at least once; a can opener. There is a gear mate on the gears but if you want to have the handle move you will need to suppress the gear mate and the parallel mate and then unsuppress the angle mate. The crank handle was a fun part to make. I used a loft feature to create the outside shape and a loft cut to create the inside. The rib feature was used to make reinforcements inside of the handle. Take a look at the way that I attached the crank handle to the handle pin. I made a series of slots that the handle twists into. This model was created in SolidWorks 2011; if you have an earlier version of SolidWorks you can go here to 3D Content Central to download the model for your version. I hope you enjoy. Look for my next post when I create a pipe valve and use FloXpress to simulate water flowing through the valve.
Ian Jutras
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Mechanical Engineering 2013