Tutorial series: Design for manufacturing
What you'll learn
Create a trimming tool for the upper part of the lamp, including hole details. You’ll build a feature that keys into the arm c-shape with a flat surface at the bottom to fit appropriate machinery, like a drill press.
Transcript
00:00
So far we've created a tool that's going to help us form the laminated components and we've also formed a template that's going to help us trim these inner pockets and the groove all the way around and also the outer surface edge here. And there's really only a little bit of cleanup that we need to do, one of which is to have a place that's going to mark out where we're going to drill these holes. On the top edge we would have
00:28
not been able to cut out the front, the very front surface here. We're going to make another jig that's going to help us cut out this front edge so that it's curved like that. And we're also going to do the same thing to the bottom. So we're going to make two more templates and then we should be done.
00:45
So the first thing I'm going to do here is in our side sketch, I am going to start laying out what this tool looks like, and I'm going to have it key into the shape that we cut out previously of this outer surface. And I'm going to have a flat surface on the bottom so that we could put this in something like a drill press. So I'm just going to select this edge here and draw a line across.
01:12
And I just want to make sure that I can line it up with this front edge here because the router as it comes around needs to trim that top, this front edge right here. So I'm going to click on this surface.
01:28
So as the router comes around, it's going to trim this front edge and it's not gonna interfere with the template that we're making right here. The other thing I wanna do is make sure that I can clamp this to the back part of this curve, and it's going to key into the shape that exists here already. So that gives us the basic shape. I'm gonna make sure of a couple things here. One is...
01:58
that this is a line coincident with the center point.
02:04
and that this line here
02:11
is going to be parallel to this front edge.
02:20
So I'm just going to select these two lines like this, and I'm going to make them parallel.
02:28
I'm also going to make sure that this line here is perpendicular. I can add a line along this axis here.
02:41
and I can make sure that this is perpendicular to this edge. That way when I lay this surface flat on a drill press, I know that I can drill that hole perfectly up and down.
02:55
going to extend this line as well up to the top and this should be parallel to this line. Perfect.
03:12
I want to add a little bit of a lip to this component, so I'm going to offset this edge.
03:19
by a couple of millimeters, just so that I can build a little bit of a feature that will interlock with the C shape.
03:30
From here, I'm going to start extruding my solids. And I can just select these surfaces.
03:39
And just going to again, extrude them to one side. And I'm going to do minus 20 millimeters.
03:49
perfect. And now we can start trimming these shapes back.
04:00
So this was the previous location of the template, is this outer edge here.
04:10
And I'm going to also extrude out a separate feature. And I need to momentarily hide this arm. And what I can do is go into the extrusion feature that I just finished.
04:31
I can add a profile to this extrusion by just selecting that area. And now I need to do a couple of changes here. So the first one is I'm going to move this surface back so that the router bit, when it comes around, we can account for some of the thickness of the router. So I'm just going to move this back five millimeters. I'm now going to subtract the shape of the inner arm from the die.
04:59
And that's going to give me this feature that will engage with the arm. So I'm going to do a Boolean subtraction. I'm going to select both of these. Subtract. And I'm going to keep this part and I'm going to subtract this part. And I'm going to keep the original removed bodies. So if I hide this, what I should get is a slot that will fit around the lamp.
05:33
The other thing I need to do is also trim this top section so that I can
05:41
have the router bit follow along.
05:45
and I'm gonna split this body.
05:53
with this outer face.
05:59
I'm gonna also split this body.
06:07
way.
06:12
and I can remove this shape altogether.
06:20
The last remaining thing is to just fill at this corner and have it match up with the lamp shape itself.
06:35
And that would be enough for the router to come along and trim the shape out. The last remaining thing is to make sure that we have space to bore this hole through the templates. I'm just going to select this feature here. I can just go back up to this sketch here and I can project that feature onto that surface. So now with this circle.
07:04
I can extrude this down.
07:08
cut through everything so that I could match up a drill bit to that hole.
07:15
So now we're just going to recombine all of these components. We're gonna do a union here.
07:23
And I'm also noticing that there's this extra little surface here. And one of the things that we can do is come and edit this extrusion, select this extra profile that needs to be extruded.
07:40
And there's several things that we could do here. Like we could add features for screws to be able to clamp this together or add space for clamps to come along. But this is the general shape that we're trying to approximate. I'm gonna add a little bit of thickness to this bottom surface just to give a little bit of extra support. And that way we don't have a sharp edge on this corner over here.
08:06
And then all that remains is to mirror and boolean everything together. So I'm going to select mirror.
08:18
We're going to mirror on this surface. And then we're going to mirror on this surface.
08:21
Done. And we can boolean these together. Union.
08:33
And I'm also going to select this shape, I'm going to mirror that along this face.
08:43
And one more bullying.
08:50
There we go. So now this allows us to complete this outer surface by trimming the rest of the lamp shape and also gives us a place to bore out the hole needed for our lamp posts.
09:09
That completes the trimming tool for the upper part of the lamp. And I can hide these.
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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.