Hi Folks,

I'm currently playing with Alexandre Chappel's modular box/case design to incorporate into storage for my new workshop. I thought I'd start by creating a parametric model of his existing design.

Creating the (parametric) boxes and case was easy - all fully parameterized, but then I added some McMaster-Carr hinges and things went downhill fast!

I'm not sure if it's "not my day for the timeshare" but I can't figure out how to tie the hinges to the rear panel. Everything looks good as it is but changing the cases' parameters changes the case size but the hinges remain in their current location. Before anyone suggests it I tried rigid groups to no avail...


case.f3d

291 KB

I'm probably missing something simple - but what?

Cheers!

Andy B.

My dad always used to say “everyone has a building project in them”. This will be my third…

Having moved into the family home with my late wife Gloria some twenty years ago we undertook a number of building projects. One that we never got around to was rebuilding the garage dad constructed circa 1960.

With Gloria now sadly gone it's down to me to do this on my own (well - with a little help with the footings and slab).

The original garage was suffering badly with subsidence and the weather and was well past economic repair, so I’m knocking it down...

Once that’s done and new footings have been built and a slab poured, it's out with the first-fix-nailer and I’m on the way to a new workshop!

Fusion may seem an odd choice for designing a timber building but whilst it was somewhat painful at times (featheredge springs to mind) my “Personal License” is free, I know my way around the basics pretty well, I could produce drawings as needed, and most importantly, I wanted a Bill Of Materials for ordering timber and sheet materials.

Producing a design suitable for BOM output had its quirks, mainly trying to avoid using  “mirrors” and “copy new”. Additionally, I started to see small errors (probably rounding errors) appearing with "extrude" in particular which needed to be accounted for but with a little patience, I got there in the end…


workshop-garage.f3z

6.7 MB



One of the things that I find I’m doing more and more with Fusion 360 and my 3D printer is “upcycling”, making items that give new life and purpose to old stuff. Take the bracket/clamp illustrated for example.

On its own it does nothing, but add a second bracket, a “floor tile lifter” from a previous life as a network engineer, my old Digital SLR camera, part of an even older tripod, a 2.5mm headphone jack and cable, a Raspberry Pi and a 2 relay module, mix in a smattering of BASH script and what have you got?





There is an ulterior motive to this project, I’m about ready to demolish my dad's 65-year-old garage and build a new workshop in its place and I wanted a photographic record of doing so. And other than the printed brackets everything was "lying around" at home.

I’m terrible at remembering to do stuff like this so what better than to upcycle something that will do it all for me taking pictures every 10 minutes from 7:30 in the morning till 8:00 at night...

Hi folks, to my knowledge, McMaster-Carr doesn't exist on this side of the pond, but I still find it really useful for inserting hardware into designs.

When looking for something I tend to race down the browser tree and then realize I've "overshot" what I was looking for. My somewhat dumb question is "is there a way to go back up without going to the top and starting again?" If there is I haven't spotted it yet!

Any tips? 🤞

Combined with some 3mm styrene sheet these clips help keep draw contents under control. Gloria, my late wife, would have loved them, she always used to complain about stuff sliding around in the kitchen drawers, but unfortunately, I lost her before I found both Fusion 360 and my second-hand 3D printer.





I printed these at 0.16mm with a 25% infill on my Ender 3. After a couple of failed attempts, I found the various clips printed best upside down with a brim.

The only tricky part was making sure the styrene sheet was a snug fit in the slots so the clips stayed put when assembled. Thanks to parametric design the final solution was quite simple.

The clips use parameters for the slot height and width and offsets created on the holding faces ("styreneThicknessDelta" in the parameters) to allow the slot width to be easily tweaked without taking away from the models intent. A few test prints of a section of a clip soon got the width dialled-in.


drawer divider clips.f3d

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I'm in the process of rebuilding my workshop (just finishing the demolition of the old one) but I'm really looking forward to making new workbenches, tools etc. once I'm done.

To this end, I'm currently recreating Suso's modular workbench (Paoson Woodworking) as a parametric model in Fusion.


The construction/assembly is quite simple but the part count is pretty high so I thought it would be a good opportunity to play with OpenBOM to generate something I could use as a cut list.

I don't know if I'm approaching this the right way but it seems that everything needs to be a component, grouped into more components as subassemblies, so the minimum requirement is "Multi-level BOM". However, there doesn't appear to be a way to count multiple identical items especially if they're in separate components.

For example, there are six identical drawers in the design, so my brain says that's 6 components, containing fronts, backs sides etc. each of which is also a component in its own right. The BOM lists these as 30 individual components rather than 6 x fronts, 6 x backs etc. which seems counterintuitive. It's probably me doing something silly in the component structure, but at the moment I'm having to search manually for identical items...

As I said, "Am I missing something?"

Cheers,

Andy B.


modular workbench.f3d

880 KB



I have an STL file (attached) of a power supply mount for my Ender 3 which I printed a while ago when my original power supply went to meet its maker.

I imported it into Fusion 360 and created a BREP in an attempt to modify the design so I could mount a relay in the free space for OctoPrint to control the power (the attached Fusion Archive explains better).

I've modified many STL files this way in the past but for some unknown reason, this one won't let me change anything, I can't merge (delete) the relevant faces so I can create the M3 threaded mounts for the board, I just keep seeing a selection of terse Fusion errors.

 It feels like there's some sort of lock on the file that stops it being modified.

Ideas anyone?

Ta!

Andy B.



TH3D A10 Ender 3 PSU Cover.STL

92.9 KB



psu cover with relay v1.f3z

1.47 MB



OK, so I'm working on a case for the "Micro Panel", an OctoPrint plugin/hardware combination that displays a small amount of printing information and provides limited printer control directly from the Pi (Fusion 360 export attached).
 
Before I release the design "into the wild" I have a small "niggle" I'd like to resolve.

The design includes a parametric 4040 V Slot Cover component which may have a slot at one end for cable access. The "slot" is actually a sub-component of the cover which cuts through its parent.

I'm trying to figure out a one-click solution to turn the "slot" on and off, but I think I'm overthinking the problem...

Bright ideas anyone?

Ta!

Andy B.


oled case.f3z

1.45 MB



I seem to recall a while ago seeing an STL tracing technique involving slicing the mesh (or it might have been a brep) and creating a sketch from the sliced boundary. Unfortunately, my poor old brain can't remember how it worked or where I saw it...

Could some kind soul put me out of my mystery - or at least tell me where to find the video,

Many thanks,

Andy B.

Ok, I know this isn't strictly Fusion related and it's definitely NOT my idea, but I created the design in Fusion. (The final result was sliced with Cura.) It should work with any slicer that supports Z Hopping and can position files so they overlay using the model origin from design tools such as Fusion, but I thought it might be of use to those of us who cannot afford dual extruder printers. 😎



The case is a mere 40mm wide and 20mm deep and was printed for an OctoPrint Plugin on my poor old secondhand Ender 3 at 0.12mm. For a first attempt, I was really impressed with the result.

The technique is simple if a little fiddly. the only pre-requisite is knowing the resolution you're going to print at.

Sketch and extrude the text FACE DOWN. In my case, I knew I was going to print at 0.12mm so I extruded the text to 0.36mm (3 layers).  Lay the item you want the text on over the top and "Combine/Cut" the two together with the text as a cutting tool and making sure "Keep Tools" is checked.

You should now have two bodies, one for the text and one for the item with the text cut-out - a perfect fit in the other body. Slice them both making sure that the main body has Z Hop enabled at a height of at least 0.36mm (from above).

Print the text and then without moving anything (but remove the purge lines and the skirt) and then change the filament and print the main item over the top.

The main print should skip over the text as it prints and the result should be as smooth as the printer bed!