Assignment 2
This week’s assignment asked us to start designing potential final projects using a CAD software. For this assignment I will be using Autodesk Inventor and Fusion 360 as my uses the Autodesk suite exclusively as we are also a Project Lead The Way school. I have a pretty in depth working knowledge of this software as I use it in almost every class that I teach. I really like the Inventor software as it is quite powerful and allows me to create parts, assemblies animations and finally I can render/animate the project if needed. I also really like the fact that a change will follow all the way through the workflow without having to "redo" parts of any one file type. As I mentioned in the week one assignment I am exploring the creation of a waxing hot box for waxing skis and snowboards. I will be using Inventor to generate the cabinet design, plan drawings and eventually I will export the files to Illustrator to laser cut a model and to Fusion 360 to generate the G code for cutting out parts on the CNC router and Mill. My hope is to make the cabinet out of either 3/4 inch plywood or three layers of corrogated cardboard (to save weight and recycle). I am checking into the material properties of the cardboard. The entire inside of the heat chamber will be lined with foil backed foam for insulation purposes.
assembly file
The image above is the first iteration of the cabinet for the hot box. I used inventor to individually draw each separate part/side then I used the constrain function of inventor to assemble them into the final form. I like the constrain function as it allows you to fix parts together and move them independantly or as a group. The feature that I really like in Inventor is that it allows you to make changes that move upwards through your different types of files. There are a total of eight different parts in this one assembly. If you would like to see them in their individual states please click on the project media link below.
We were also asked to evaluate 2D software in order to design possible parts. I chose to use Illustrator as it is a software that I am familiar with. In Illustrator you are able to draw parts by drawing lines and then using basic dimensioning to get them to size. Here is one of my end pieces drawn in Illustrator.
