Computer Aided Design

This entry will consist of 2 entries. Making of Keychain and a Handphone Stand using CAD software (Fusion 360). I will first begin the process of making the Keychain.

Tutorial 1: Refresher Activity (18 October 2021)

Objective: Making of a keychain in Fusion 360 that is able to be made using laser cutting.

After launching Fusion 360, this would be your view. Click on the "Sketch" Button to get started as shown below.

Step 1: Selecting "Sketch" Function

After clicking on the "Sketch" button do select the plane that you will be working on, as shown below.

Step 2: Setting plane for "Sketch"

Next, Select the 2-point rectangle at the top ribbon and create a rectangle with dimensions of 65mm by 25mm.

Step 3: Creating a 2-point rectangle

Next, select the "Fillet" function and fillet the 4 sides of the rectangle by 5mm.

Step 4: Fillet of Rectangle

Next, Construct a line and right-click it selecting the "Normal-Construction line" option.

Step 5: Normal Construction Line

Next, select "Dimensions" (circled) shown at the top of the picture. 

Afterward, select the two highlighted yellow lines below. Set the distance to be of 7mm.

Place a center point on the line drawn earlier and select the circle shape to draw a circle with a diameter of 5mm.

Step 6: Drawing of keychain ring

Select the textbox and input and wording you wish to see on your personalized keychain

Step 7: Wording on the keychain

Select the base (excluding text) and extrude the base by 3mm. Afterward, hide the "Bodies" view and allow the "Sketch" view to be seen. Extrude your wording then by 2mm.

Step 8: Extruding of product.

Congratulations!😆😁 You have just created a personalized keychain using Fusion 360! Hopefully, it was not too hard to follow through and each of you has created something wonderful and creative!

Step 9: Finished product

Reflection

Overall, this tutorial was really a good refresher for us to get going as we just ended the holidays, forgetting most of the functions that existed in Fusion 360. However, due to this tutorial, we were able to make use of some of the functions such as Sketch, Extrude, Fillet, and more.

It definitely gave me more space to think about what I can make and what is possible to make, for instance, in this tutorial we were tasked to make a piece of design that can be laser cut. This definitely brought about more restrictions towards the way we work as with certain designs if it is being used to laser cut, what is designed might not be what it looked like in reality as laser cutting just trace the design of what you wish to cut in 2D, thus if you are not careful you might end up with a really ugly design without knowing. This has somehow made us think more and be more creative in a sense our design would still look good under the premise of laser cutting.

Tutorial 2: Designing Handphone Stand (Fusion 360) 

26 October 2021

Objective: Design a simple handphone stand (using parametric) that can be made using laser-cutting

To begin off, after launching Fusion 360 click Modify and select Change Parameters. After doing so, this will be your view as shown below. As shown below, I decided to only intake one parameter and I named it "t" for thickness, naming does not matter as long as you can differentiate between each specified parameter.

Step 1: Setting Parameters

After which, I clicked on the Sketch function and drew a 2-point rectangle of  14t mm by 6t mm.

Step 2: Drawing 2-point Rectangle

Now, using the parameter, t. Draw a 2-point Rectangle with dimensions of t mm by t mm on all 4 sides of the 2-point Rectangle. This would be used as the bridging for the Phone Stand later on.

Step 3: Drawing Bridging

Next, I would be drawing the main body for the Phone stand itself. Two functions used are the Line and Fit-point Spline.

Step 4: Drawing of Main Body

Select all the drawn components and duplicate them using Copy and Paste function.

Step 5: Duplication of components

Select all components (excluding parametric rectangle drawn earlier) and extrude it by t mm.

Step 6: Extrude components

The design at this point is already good for laser cutting, however, I tried to go an extra step and decided to try assembling the different components together and making the 3D version of it but as I am still an amateur at using Fusion 360 thus I have searched for tutorial videos to guide me through it. The following two videos are what I have used in an attempt to make the 3D version of the phone stand.

Tutorial Video: Joining Components

After following through the video, I managed to make the 3D version of my phone stand and this is how it looks like.

Step 7: Finished 3D Phone Stand

Reflection

Through this Handphone stand making exercise, I was able to understand how to use parametric function better and it certainly was a good experience being slowly exposed to the many features Fusion 360 has to offer. I would definitely make use of the parametric function more in my subsequent designs. Using the Joint function was certainly useful as well as it allowed me to visualize how my design would look like when it is assembled together.

However, I still am having trouble on deciding how to make use of the parametric function within a shorter amount of time. Hopefully, in subsequent designs, I am able to shorten the time and be able to draw faster using the parametric function.