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Mechanical Engineering Home >Info: Useful Links > ProE > Spring

Pro/E is able to model any solid you can think of. It may not be easy, but it can be done. There are several places on the web which have standard Pro/E parts you can download for free. One of them is:

http://www.veng.com/Html/Part_lib/Html/proe_index.html.

This site has springs and gears and bearings, and other models. You can do a web search to find others. The standard Pro/E part libraries that PTC provides were not installed in IT Labs. But the online resources are better, because PTC's libraries contain family tables of fasteners such as screws and nails, and does not have many sample gears, springs, etc. You are encouraged to take a look at a few and see how they were made, as most of the parts show good Pro/E design methods. However, it is not recommended using them without modification in your drawings though - make sure the part you download is really what you think it is. You will also need to modify the features and size to fit your design. Start from scratch if you do not feel comfortable doing this.

More info on downloading parts...

How do I download a Pro/E object from the Web? I think it downloaded, but now I can't get it to display on Pro/E.

To download the part, you can just click on the link by the part and that will bring up a box asking you where to save the file. The best place to save it is in the same directory that you are storing all of your Pro/E work in. It probably will not come up in Pro/E because the file is compressed.

To uncompress the file, you need to type two commands in the UNIX shell where your file is located:

1. type 'uncompress filename', where filename is the entire name of the file and will be like I stated above, 'name.tar.Z' This will remove the '.Z' from the filename, so that the file will now be 'name.tar'.
2. type 'tar xvf name.tar'. This will complete the decompression process and create a file called name.prt.1; this is a regular Pro/E part file and can be opened and modified in Pro/E.

Also, is it as easy to make changes on a downloaded Pro/E part, as if I had created it myself? (i.e., changing dimensions, adding a feature, making it a part of an assembly.)

Pro/E does not care who created the part file initially. To modify the dimensions or add a feature you just use the same process you would use if you had created the part.