Hi all,
Just thought I'd share this recent project to design a custom tool, in this case a wrench for optical applications.
Total project time was about a day, including three stages of prototyping and tool development, and the tool itself is composite plastic with brass and steel inserts. It's intended for assembly and disassembly of electro-optical components.
This is mostly designed with extruded circles, added and subtracted, with some loft to create conical areas and there's heavy use of the fillet function. The circular indents, intended to provide finger-grips, are created through a simple cylinder with circular patterns.
A lot of use of CCS ( Custom Co-ordinate System ) made installing other panels and faces quite easy.
It's probably a good example of what a moderate beginner can achieve quickly with the application after just a few weeks of semi-regular use.
Regards
David
Nice pice you have there. I would love to watch the video.
Video link works now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO23kjSVTTI
Thanks David - great work!
Hi Klaus,
Thankyou for posting that as a link - here's another video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A63KMcECxxU
This one is how to use Slice and Extrude Face - two simple commands that I used to extend a design when I realized it was 5mm too short for use and so I sliced it through the X/Z plane ( I said X/Y, but it was X/Z ) and then used move ( typing in move ) and gave it a displacement of 5mm in the Y plane. The I used extrude face to stretch the lower face back up to the top, before using union to rejoin the parts - A very simple and effective way to make an internal part longer by stretching out one section.
Also, slice can be tricky to use, especially when people aren't familiar with CCS and planes, so it's worth clicking on one side and deleting it just to make sure the slice is in the correct place and plane. Then either undo the delete, or the slice and redo what you needed to do next.
ThanksDavid