coil — Generate various types of coils, using pipe control points calculated from coil dimensions.
coil creates a pipe shape within coil.g or a user supplied file that implements a coil according to user provided dimensions. If no dimensions are supplied defaults are used.
-n number_of_turns
Sets the number of turns desired in the coil. Must be an integer value greater than zero - fractional turns are not supported.
-l
Instructs the coil tool to create a "left handed" coil (default is "right handed"). I.e. - from the starting point of the coil, the coil winding will proceed in the -x direction for a left handed coil, and in the +x direction for a right handed coil.
-d outer_diameter
Sets the outer diameter of the coil in terms of millimeters.
-w wire_diameter
Specify the diameter of the wire to be wound into a coil in terms of millimeters.
-h helix_angle
Specify the helix angle of the coil in degrees.
-p pitch
Specify the pitch - distance between center of wire at beginning and end of a single turn in mm. Minimum value is equal to the wire diameter.
-s cap_type
Specify the capping style for the start of the coil. The default is 0, with no
special styling. 1 is a squared off cap, 2 is a cap ground in the plane
normal to the vector of the coiling direction (the x-y plane), and 3
squares off the coil as well as grounding it. Any non-default cap
will result in extra turns being added to the coil above those specified
with -n
.
-e cap_type
Specify the capping style for the end of the coil. Default and options are the same as for the starting cap.
-S number_of_turns,outer_diameter,wire_diameter,helix_angle,pitch,winding_direction
An advanced option that allows specification of multiple sections, with settings specified
in a comma delimited list as above. All settings are required for each section - multiple
sections are defined in left to right order with the left-most section being the starting
section at the origin. Capping styles are supported for multiple section coils, but the
presence of one or more sections specified with the -S
will cause any
supplied parameters other than capping styles to be ignored. There is very little sanity
checking here - many inputs will result in invalid pipe primitives and generate only an
empty database file.
The following will create coils exercising the various options.
Example 3. Creating a multi-section coil with right handed winding
coil -S 10,1000,50,60,800,1 -S 10,1000,50,0,100,1