Tutorial series: Design for manufacturing
What you'll learn
To finalize the lamp base tool, you’ll extrude bottom and side clamp holes as well as define the top surface area for the router to follow. This includes offsetting the base profile, constructing the clamp area, extruding, and mirroring to create bottom clamp holes, followed by creating a box around the top of the base to then extrude away.
Transcript
00:01
So now we could bring these four pieces together and then secure them against this template and have that space to weld and not have to worry about our template melting or burning. The next thing we're gonna figure out is how to clamp all these parts together. There's two other features that I wanted to include on this tool. One of them is slots in the bottom surface here to be able to clamp these parts in place while we're welding.
00:28
And the other is a curved surface on the top here to be able to use as a router template so that we can actually shape this top curve and be able to flip this part around. So starting on the bottom, I want to start a sketch and I'm going to just offset this current profile and that way I can make sure that I have enough wall thickness all the way around. So I'm going to click offset edge.
00:56
we're going to click on this edge here, and I'm just going to bring this in. And that's really just to make sure I have enough material all the way around, and I don't get too thin in any one location. I'm going to run a straight line across here. And really I want to be able to clamp across this distance here. And that's not too large for any given clamp that we have.
01:22
And I need to make a slot on the bottom here. So I'm gonna use this offset tool again. And I'm going to just pick a single this time and just offset this one edge 10 millimeters. So I'm gonna make sure that I have enough space here to put a clamp and I'm just gonna square off this shape and use these intersections as a guide.
01:47
Add another edge over here, like that. And you can see that these perpendicular constraints are automatically showing up, so I don't need to do anything else there to constrain those lines. And I'm just gonna extrude this up into the body, 15 millimeters, because the other side is relatively short. So when we cut this material away, I don't want that pocket to stick through the top surface. And I want to mirror this feature over to the other side.
02:16
So the way we're going to do that is going back into the sketch. I'm going to make some construction lines and one of them is centering along this surface here. Another construction line this way. And I can make both of those construction lines by clicking the make instruction button.
02:46
And I'm going to now use these sketches here to help define another plane. So I'm going to click add a construction plane. I'm going to select perpendicular at edge. So I'm going to select the edge that I am going to use. And then I'm going to just select a point and I can make sure that it lands on that endpoint. So now this plane here is, is bisecting this part. And that's good enough there.
03:15
And if I select it, I will be able to select a mirror. So with the mirror constraint, I can now go in and select these surfaces.
03:29
and when they are complete, it will make a shape on the other side as well. So now I have a mirrored feature.
03:39
The other thing is we want to shape this top surface here so that we have a cutaway and we can use that as a guide to help a router follow along and actually trim the surfaces that we weld in place. So I'm going to start a new sketch on just the face of this part.
04:00
And I'm going to project the edges of the part onto that sketch. And then I'm going to make an area here that I can use to cut across. So I'm just going to very simply draw a box like this. And I'm just going to give these some constraints so that they're nice and clean. And I can use them to reference some point later.
04:32
There we go. And I'm just going to use this as an extrude area and just cut all the way across.
04:44
So now I can use these slots here to clamp this round surface on when I have an individual piece. I can clamp across this way with another clamp. And then the top surface here would be great for using a router with a bearing on it. So I would make my bearing stick up past these slots here.
05:11
and it'll run along this surface here and cut away this material on the bottom.
05:19
If I hide the base cover, there's a tool that could be 3D printed or it could be CNC machined or it could even be cut and trimmed by hand. If additional features need to be added, you know, these surfaces could get pulled out and help with maintaining the shape, but we'll call that done. The last bit of work here is to do some house cleaning and put all of these elements in a folder. So I'm just going to click.
05:47
new folder and all of those things end up in there. I'd also like to add our base cover into that so I'm going to turn that on and drag this up into our folder and then I'm just going to grab this folder and put it inside of our fabricated parts. I'm going to rename this folder base cover.
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About the instructor
Andrew Camardella is an Industrial Design Consultant and Faculty member at DePaul University, with a diverse background stemming from his passion for creation, tinkering, hacking, and experimentation. His expertise in the product development process and proficiency with various digital tools enable him to seamlessly translate concepts, 3D models, prototypes, and products between physical and digital realms, enabling clients to address user needs and tackle complex design and manufacturing challenges. His extensive design and fabrication experience spans multiple industries, including consumer and commercial products, large-scale art, digital imaging, packaging, environment design, green design, and instructional content development for a wide range of clients including tech startups, consumer goods companies, artists, and inventors.