Octopodes as well as useless plastic baubles begone. It’s time yet once again for one more installment of discovering exactly how to make a thing with 3D style tools. This week, we’re making something with AutoCAD. It’s an amazing piece of software application that costs $4000 per seat. Hilariously costly for any type of house tinkerer, however if you go to a university with an engineering program, there’s a computer lab with machines running AutoCAD somewhere on campus.
Last week we took a look at making something with OpenSCAD. AutoCAD is much, much different. Where OpenSCAD is sorta, kinda like programming, AutoCAD is just a digital version of t-squares, triangles, directly edges, as well as people getting uppity when you don’t phone call their drawing gadget a ‘lead holder’.
I’ve damaged this tutorial down into two parts: ideal now you’re reading the tutorial on drawing 2D objects in AutoCAD. This weekend I’ll publish the improvement of 2D objects into a 3D printable part. checked out on for exactly how to produce a 2D item in AutoCAD.
Our Thing
Because demonstrating different method to produce a 3D printable item without utilizing the exact same item each time, we’re opting for this drawing again. That drawing is almost 100 years old, however it’s still a excellent introduction to drawing as well as turning a photo into a 3D printable object.
Let’s just dig ideal in.
We’re going to begin by drawing the top point of view of our part.
Start by drawing two circles. From the ‘Home’ tab, click on the Circle decrease down menu as well as choose ‘Center, Diameter’. This will enable you to draw a circle by choosing a point for the center as well as entering a number for the diameter. From our almost 100-year-old drawing of our thing, we just requirement to draw a 1 inch diameter circle as well as a 2 3/8 inch diameter circle with the exact same center point.
I’ll preface this next part by stating this isn’t the ideal method to do AutoCAD, or any type of drafting app. The expert method to do this next step is to produce one more type of line – preferably a different color, as well as one that extends to infinity. This is called a building line, as well as it’s the appropriate method to do this kind of thing. Nevertheless, I’m an idiot as well as this is the basic method to do things.
The next step is to produce those bit bits sticking off the end of the circles on our thing. We’ll begin with the one with the odd radii on them.
Draw a line 1 ¼ inch long starting from the center of the circles. Then, draw a line on either side of the bottom of the line 1 3/8 inch long. You’ll end up with something that appears like the photo to the right. Now, just delete that very first line coming from the center of the circles, add that 5/16 inch long part on the side, as well as then draw one more line going intersecting with the huge circle.
Those corners look a bit rough compared to the hundred year old drawing, so let’s round them off. From the house tab, choose ‘Fillet’. AutoCAD then prompts us to choose an item as well as shows the words [Undo Polyline Radius Trim Multiple] in the command bar. type in Radius, specify 0.125, as well as click on one line of the difficult corner, then the next line. After you click the second time, that 90 degree corner will be replaced with a great rounded edge. Do the exact same with the two other radii linking the flange to the huge circle as well as you’ll begin to see the 100-year-old part take shape.
In terms of projecting this part into a 2D drawing, there’s an additional line ideal now we requirement to get rid of. It’s between the last two fillets we just drew. You can get rid of that line by clicking on the Trim button in the house tab. It will ask you to choose objects, so click on the last two fillets we just created. when they’ve both turned into dotted lines, hit enter, click the line you’d like to get rid of, as well as it’ll disappear.
Finishing off the ‘top’ part of our part, as projected onto a 2D drawing is left as an exercise to the reader.
Now, there’s only one bit missing from our part, as well as it’s likewise a excellent method to demonstrate one more tool in AutoCAD. begin by drawing a line – it doesn’t matter exactly how long – from the center of our circles. Using the Rotate command, choose this line, specify the center of the circles as a base point, hit enter, as well as specify a rotation angle of 45 degrees. now all we have to do is cut a 3/8 inch slot as well as trim whatever up. type ‘Offset’ into AutoCAD (There’s a button on the house tab. It appears like an upside-down letter T written in bubble letters), specify the balance out distance – in this situation a half of 3/8ths, or 0.1875 in decimal, hit enter, as well as click on the line we just rotated. click on one side of our turned line, then on the other side. Delete the center line, trim whatever up, as well as there’s your part. who would have believed you might really communicate info with an animated .gif?
There’s our top projection
Since we have a drawing of our ‘thing’ when seen from above, all we have to do now is bring whatever into a third dimension. This publish is already pushing 1000 words, though, as well as the previous OpenSCAD tutorial got a few comments appreciating exactly how short it was.
This weekend I’ll surface off turning this drawing into a 3D printable object. It’s not particularly hard, however describing it will most likely take a 1000 words yet again.