I hope you all enjoyed the break and were able to stay safe during the blizzard on Monday! Hopefully the rest and time away from school has given you some energy to get back to work in the shop this week. Here are a few new tips for you to consider as we come back to our projects.
I came across this video on youtube by Brad Tallis. The object being made is not important, although it may interest you, but I took away a few good practices from his modeling process.
First, at the 2:31 the sketch is extruded down .4mm – even though the model units is inches, why? The presenter mentions this is because he intends to 3D print the model and wants 2 bottom layers. In general, the settings on our Bambu Labs X1 Carbon are for .2mm layer height. In the video, he extrudes down 0.4mm to achieve 2 perfect layers. If you need the 3D printer to be accurate for your 3D prints, it’s best to consider layer heights and wall thickness and provide them in a manner best suited for the 3D printer.
Second, at the 9:22 mark in the video there are several interior corners that need to be filleted after running a pattern operation. It would take a very long time to individually go and select every single interior corner – literally hundreds in this case – and create the fillets. The alternative is to use the Rule Fillet option which is located within the 3D fillet tool. This allows you to apply a fillet to a feature. In the case of the linked video above, the Combine feature was used to create fillets at all internal corners of the model in one click!
Lastly, At the 18:51 mark in the video, there is a brief discussion of adding parameters to the project. Normally, we tend to add parameters as we progress through the model. However, I like the idea of working my way through the model, and then deciding where parameters may need to be created. Notice in the video how parameters are created by selecting the previously created dimension in the Model Tab in the Parameters menu. You can then update the name of the dimension, and then click the ‘Star’ to add it to your favorites. This is a handy way to creating parameters to allow size options within a model.
Thank you for not reading this.
MVTHS Engineering 