How do I create the spiral tube on the inside of the cooler?
I already have the two connectors to the outside on the top left and I have extruded them inwards. I also managed to make the tube that goes straight down towards the loop on the bottom. The problem is the spiralling part that is going around the tube that goes straight down. This is what I have so far:
What I want to do is to take the selected edge loop and use the spin tool to make it wrap around the central pipe downwards until the loop section. At that point I am pretty sure I’ll manage on my own, but this part is what stops me in my tracks. I keep thinking:
“There must be a straightforward was to do this” but I just can’t figure it out.
Add a single vert (add a plane, in edit mode select all> M > at center), offset it slightly (move that vertex with G > X >.01 or so) add a screw modifier and a skin modifier. Change the screw modifier settings to get what you need. Done
Bonus: Put a subdivision surface modifier after the skin modifier and turn smooth shading on on the skin modifier
Or another way is to do it with a curve. Activate the “add curve extra objects” add-on in preferences, then in the add menu chose curve - curve spirals - archemedian.
I cobbled together my own solutions from the answers in here. What I essentially did was take an edge loop from the inwards extruded tube, put it at a 90° angle with the spin tool and then select the outermost edge loop of the inside tube. I duplicated that edge loop with Shift+D and then separated it with P->Selection. Then I applied the screw modifier to the separated edge loop and adjusted it so it went all the way down the reflux cooler.
After applying the screw modifier, I combined both the spiral and the rest of the reflux cooler with Ctrl+J into one mesh. From there I activated auto merge vertices in edit mode and activated snapping to edges. With that I connected the separated edge loops to each other, which were right next to each other. On the bottom of the spiral I used the “Bridge Edge Loops” function (is that an addon you need to activate?) to connect the straight tube in the middle to the spiral tube at the bottom of the reflux cooler.
Once everything was connected, I applied a solidify modifier and recalculated the normals so I didn’t have any incorrectly oriented faces. This is the end result:
yeah I know about curves but the problem is that I don’t think I can easily combine the spiral from a curves solution with my already existing edge loop, which is why I think the solution of applying the screw modifier to my already existing edge loop is more straightforward.
