As a newbie and I mean newbie to this field of work, some of the CAD stuff can be daunting. It is great to find projects on Thingiverse to print, but when it comes to designing and printing your own designs, well that is another matter.
I am currently going through some Fusion 360 training material. I decided to jump in and make a start by taking and existing model and altering it for my needs. In this case it was part from Pitsco Education from their Prime Robotics collection. The part is a short beam connector that I decide to modify with an end that is a simple hinge.
In the photo the original model is on the left and as you move to the right you can see the incremental changes that I made. This taught me a lot on adding and shaping. The last pair included a hole in the hinge flanges to accommodate the bolt. So little steps work well rather than the anguish of trying to build the finished design.
For all you newbies, jump in and have a go on something simple. With Fusion360 I created a small block, two corners had filleted edges (round corners), four edges had chamfered edges. I made a hole through the block. On either end of the hole I had a larger recessed hole with just enough depth to accommodate the head of the bolt on one end and the nut on the other end. It worked well
I also created some text (Model 1) and recessed it in 2mm, I will look for a good font for doing this and play with font sizes.
This is what the hinge above looks like inserted into the Pitsco Prime robotics beams. Fits like a glove.
I will be making a few design improvements to lengthen the hinge flange and widen it a little to have recessed holes for the bolt head and nut to hide in; hence the exercise above.
@doug you’re advancing real far in this hobby. That’s great! BTW, can anyone use Fusion 360 for free? I though it was only for education/educators? I’ve been using Tinkercad, but it’s starting to feel limited for what i want to design.
I am using it free; I truly cannot remember the fields that I filled in when I was online to download. In essence I wanted it to learn from the package, for personal use only and I am not using it for commercial gain.
The lugs on the bottom will screw to the RoboChair framework. I will print two of these. It is reversible and has the letter L fro left side and R for right side. If I have measured it correctly both halve should meet neatly in the middle along the bottom edge of the PC. I have a slot in the side to allow headphones to be plugged in.
Might be rough, but not bad for a guy who knew nothing about this stuff until a few weeks ago. Persistence and little trial & error design sessions have got me this far and I keep learning. I will send a photo when it is all complete.
Snapmaker is brilliant for making bespoke parts. One of my designs is this first prototype and final adapter to mount an infrared transceiver to RoboChair, I have a few more parts to make. Up till now, I have been using Velcro patches on a few parts to attach them.
Still a newbie but learning; a build hint for other newbies. I am designing a number of adapters and mounts to attach components to my RoboChair project.
Using Fusion 360 it is easy to create boxes; they have solid sides and you could print them easily. I am now extruding holes through the boxes to reduce the amount of filament and printing time required. You only need consider the structural integrity/strength by doing this. … I am still learning. Keep having fun.
Example, a mount to hold a small Bluetooth speaker.
In this example I have a USB HUB that slides into this frame.
