Tutorial series: Design for manufacturing
What you'll learn
Cut out a guide in the exterior template to create the groove and hole details in the lamp arm and trim the outer edges including cavities. You’ll build a construction axis, extruding the grooves and holes while excluding bodies in design history, and using subtract and union to create the framework for clamping pieces together and trimming the outer body surface.
Transcript
00:00
And I am going to start to make some sketches and sketch planes in order to cut out the guide that we'll need in order to cut these pockets out of the back of this component.
00:16
And we'll also use it to help trim the outer edge of this component here.
00:28
I first need to create an axis. So I'm gonna build a construction axis that's based on this cylindrical surface in here, which is where we're gonna need to bore a hole. So we're gonna make a perpendicular plane to this sketch here. So I'm gonna add a construction plane. I'm going to create perpendicular to an edge like this.
01:01
And I can move this anywhere I want on this edge. It's really not critical where that is, because we're just going to cut all the way through this top component here. So we're going to start there. I'm going to click Check. Now we have our plane. And I'm going to make a new sketch on this plane just to project this pocket.
01:24
So I'm going to come in here, do another project. I'm going to project these edges all the way around on the bottom. This is what's going to help us cut out the pocket. So there we go, project. And now I can extrude this surface down into this area here and cut through our template. So let's try 20 millimeters.
01:54
So that went a little bit too far. What we can do is come down into our extrusion.
02:02
and we can just exclude this body from being cut.
02:09
So now we cut all the way through our template body, but not our lamp.
02:16
So now with the trim router resting on this outer surface, we can cut this socket and follow the template.
02:26
We're going to do the same thing on this outer edge over here. We have a plane here from before.
02:36
So I'm going to create a new sketch. Well, I'm gonna hide this sketch first because it's currently getting in our way. Going to select our plane, I'm gonna make a new sketch on that surface. And I'm going to project one of the edges from this lamp body.
02:59
just like that. And now I can use that to extrude a hole through our, up our body here like this. So I'm going to come in here, let's collect some track. There we go. Perfect.
03:18
The other thing I wanted to make sure of that I'm not trimming anything from another body so I can come in and adjust our extrude feature. And there we go. So now we have the points that we need to get our template to drive to.
03:36
I'm going to move this surface over and just push it over to get to the other side of this channel here. I can look at the difference between these two surfaces here and I can see that it's 2.5 millimeters. So I'm going to just move this face over by 2.5 millimeters. And I know that this was 50 minus 2.5 millimeters, just like that. And that matches up really nicely.
04:05
So now with our router bit, with the bearing, we can follow along this template and get it to come all the way around cutting this channel. And then we can adjust the depth and cut the rest of this pocket out so that we can fit our lamp post that has to be seated in here before we can attach the outer surface. We'd additionally like to probably put wiring in here in order to prep this for final production. So...
04:34
we need to cut this channel as soon as we can. The other thing that we're gonna do is also trim the outer surface of the lamp arm. And we're going to leave a little bit of extra material on the front of the ends of the lamp, so that that way we can still clamp it in place, and then we'll come back and trim the rest of it off. So what we can do here is we can make a split body using this outer edge here.
05:05
And I'm going to select split body, and I'm going to select this inner surface like that. So I can click check, and that should split the entire body. We can get rid of this component if we don't need it anymore. Because this section is so thin right here, I am going to leave this outer part here, and I'm going to split this body one more time.
05:34
And I'm just going to make sure that we have enough space here to be able to keep some structure for this little inner part. And what I can do is get into this sketch here. And I'm going to just select this outer edge here, go to our center point. And I just want to make sure that I have a certain amount of distance to that point.
06:03
and I can say that this is going to be 20 millimeters. That should be plenty of structure. And I'm just going to extrude this edge out like that. And I'm just going to intersect it.
06:22
rather just going to subtract it and I can come to my extrusion and I can exclude this inner body here from the subtraction. And that way we can then reconnect this to our main component, union, and that's going to make it one piece.
06:50
This extra piece down here is not necessary, so we can delete that.
06:56
And now we have something to clamp to. We can clamp this upper surface in place and we can also trim this surface all the way down.
07:06
So now that this part's complete and we can trim this inner cavity and the outer cavity, we have plenty of clamping holes. We're just going to mirror and union everything so that we have our final templates for these components. So we're going to mirror this component along this face. We're going to keep the originals. And I'm going to just select these two pieces and union them.
07:35
I can hide that. I'm also gonna do the same thing here. I'm going to mirror.
07:44
along that face. That's done. And I can union them.
07:55
can hide this face.
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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.