Be gentile I’m trying LOL.
Made a 3d Printed light bar to go on top of my V4 to light up the bed plate. 90% done with it but I’m stuck in one area. What to do with the wires???
I have very little experience modeling anything. But I did make it parametric so if anyone else wanted to us it and had a different sized printer it “should” be easy to adapt.
Anyone have any tips on what I should do for a wire channel of some sort???
MP3DP V4 Parametric LED Bar v1.zip (108.0 KB)
Make it wireless!
Not sure I’ve ever seen wireless LEDs like this before. Sure would make life a TON easier though LOL
They do exist: Look Mum No Wires - This will blow your mind - YouTube
i’d use some strands from a utp cable
Well sir I stand corrected LOL. That is cool! Still have to run wires for the coil though so I’m back to square 1 LOL.
How do I get rid of this… Speed Bump…
I don’t even know what to call it. I’ve searched all over and cant figure this out. I’ve tried running the extrudes farther but they never line up right. Trying to make this a smooth transition to run wires though.
Of course… as soon as I make a post I get an idea. I don’t know if it was the right way to do it. But it worked and I’m going to roll with it!
Fillet on the top line. Took 50mm to get it to lay down flat but it looks a lot better this way I think.
This channel helped me out a TON when I kept bouncing my head off of F360. Learning project, intersect and pattern functions made my modeling like a billion percent more efficient.
This is exactly the kind of thing I am interested in learning.
I was thinking fillet at first. I’m glad that worked.
I think you could also try to make the shape and then remove it. There is something called a loft in onshape. You could have done the loft between those two faces and made a new shape. Then subtracted it from the original. The devil is in the details. I’m not sure that would work.
Now that you say Loft I’m pretty sure they have that in fusion as well. That’s where i struggle is just knowing what to call things. I just don’t use it enough to remember what i learn and carry it to the next. But I’m trying to use it more and more and retain and add more knowledge. I had this one going well then ended up frustrated at the end and all of my work making it perimetric is down the toilet. Taking a break from it for now and hopefully ill be able to back up and find where I made the “first of many” mistakes and fix it to have it all perimetric again. I wanted it that way for 2 reasons. Main one to learn it. And second if anyone else wanted to use this model I wanted it to be easy for them to make it the size they needed. Everyone here has done so much to help me so any chance i have to give back I want to take.
Here is where I ended up…
I have no idea if its going to work yet or not. I got frustrated with the parametric part not working out and walked away and started tearing the printer down to install the rest of the panels. This part will be the first thing I try to print once I get it back up and running. Luckily this will be installed on top so it wont have to come back apart
That would be my first thought, or a sweep would work as well.
But… in Onshape if you had that problem you could use the “delete face” tool - just click on the two sides and click the “heal” checkbox.
There are just so many ways of skinning this cat! 
That is something that would be cool to discuss. I know “one way” to make just about everything in CAD. I think the next level for me is to be able to do it 3-4 ways. So I can pick a more optimal one. Level 3 would be understanding why I would choose one or the other 
This x1000!!!
And to have it in a threat that I can come back a reference when needed!!!
I’d really like to see that.
I suppose that in theory all CAD packages have similar functions, but much as I’d love it, I’m not sure how that would work without specific problems.
We might be surprised to discover how different each of us is in our “one way” and therefore we all have a stock of tips we take for granted that others haven’t thought of yet!
I was thinking this kind of problem is great for @turbinbjorn’s creativity discussions. Try to CAD something tricky, get stuck, and then see how everyone else did it, or didn’t do it.
They mostly do. Onshape is made by the same people as solidworks. Fusion has a similar workflow (of sketching and extruding). Stuff like sketchup or freecad get a little more out there. Something in 2D like librecad or the old autocad are not going to translate well.
Sounds like @turbinbjorn just found his first host! @jeffeb3 And I think its great!!! I would love to learn more about it. This project is the most I have tried. Usually I just get frustrated and say F it. But I have really tried to stay focused and not let it get me discouraged.
The new AutoCAD’s 3D functions are also horrible compared to Fusion. 
I struggled for decades and couldn’t draw a line - then I struggled to find a package that I could even open until @jeffeb3 guided me (perhaps unknowingly?) to Onshape.
I still struggled terribly, but I was helping my then 15 year old grandson with an assignment and suggested he make some changes to make a model he was working on more buildable. He gave me that 15 year old blank stare that meant “I’m really not going to do that” and I asked him why.
He then explained that he didn’t really know how to use CAD, he just worked out what he needed to work out to do what he needed to do.
BINGO! From that day on, that’s what I did too - instead of trying to learn “the package” I just nutted out how to do things one project, one line, one fillet at a time and it changed my life!
There’s no point in getting older if you don’t get smarter!
(sorry about the monster hijack!)
Fusion is about all I have ever messed with. Every time i try something else i get frustrated and come back to Fusion LOL. Well i take that back… for not CNC stuff like just drawing up plans for some cabinets or something I like SketchUp. But i run the older 2017 offline version.
I’m the same exact way. I can watch them do all kinds of stuff on YouTube and yes it does help a lot. But a lot of it doesn’t help at the same time because I don’t know how to translate it to my project. So usually i try to start off all fancy and by the end I’m just whatever and get it finished to usable. I really am going to try and go back and finish the LED light bars though. I had them going so good!!! Until I tried to get Super fancy with the wire routing and that’s where I lost all the hard work i had put in earlier lol. Last night i went and clicked undo all the way until I got back to where I posted it here. I know how i want to make the wire routing now. So now I need to do it again but make it work with the parametric like I wanted it to be from the beginning. I saved a mesh to test print and make sure its going to work then I will put it back in cad the right way and re post it. My extreme lack of patients and ADHD got the better of me with it yesterday, and that’s what gets me 99.9% of the time. But I’m going to do my best to not let it win this time LOL
