Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube  

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

If you do not have any experience with CAD software, I'd suggest you start with TinkerCad. It's free and interface runs in your browser. You will need to create Autodesk account. They have few lectures right in there which will teach you basic object manipulation while creating few more or less complex models. In TinkerCad you will be able to modify existing models exported in STL file format, but I'd say it may be just easier designing your own form scratch, it's very intuitive and simple to use.

Another free and popular program is Fusion 360 also from Autodesk. This one is fully-fledged 3D designing suite, and has a bit steeper learning curve. I suggest looking up few video lectures on Youtube or Udemy (Learn Fusion 360 Or Die Trying, or those from Product Design Online). Hobbyists license is free of charge.

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

I've had very good luck with FreeCad over a number of years now.  It's available for all of the common platforms and reasonably stable.

There are tons of options and it may seem overwhelming at first, but it's relatively easy to learn, particularly if you have any 2d CAD experience.

For a simple object from scratch, the Part Design workbench can do things like a small rectangular tube in a few minutes.

For scaling an existing object, the Draft workbench has a clone-with-scale functions that allows separate X Y and Z scale factors if you need them.

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

I would suggest Fusion 360.
Learning it is not that hard and there are a ton of plugins (e.g. helical gears, rack and pinion, ...) to make your life easier if you need them.
Every step in the timeline can be modified afterwards without having to start over.
You can use parameters and formulas instead of 'hardcoded' numbers in your sketch, change a single parameter and everything will be recalculated.
Another great tutorial in 3 parts

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

Thank you all for your input! Since Fusion 360 was mentioned twice, I will try this CAD. Unfortunately, I do not have 2D CAD experience but I'll jump into the "deep end" and paddle.

My other thought would be that I would at least have 2 individuals to "run" to should I encounter issues or have question regarding Fusion 360.

I will say that I usually try very hard not to ask for help if I can figure something out on my own but this is a new territory for me.

Thank you all for taking the time to reply!

Bill

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

fusion 360 and try follow their tutorial on website

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

Thanks for the input!

However, I'm not looking to do anything fancy or challenging and after visiting the Fusion 360 website to download, I find that it is not a free software and only has an option for Free Trial.

Since I am on a fixed budget, I am much more inclined to use a free program like TinkerCAD or FreeCAD to get me started.

I'll definitely reach out if I encounter any issues or have questions.

All you input is greatly appreciated!

Bill

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

If you want to learn Fusion 360, this is a great channel, I have learned so much from it:

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheKHaug

Just pick a tutorial that is similar to what you want to learn and follow along!

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

Fusion 360 is free for personal use. I haven't paid a cent !!!

I was always sceptical about 3D printing until I discovered Fusion 360. Now I look for a 3D print solution first !!!

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

Hi yveske,

Thank You! The "Free Trial" then must be a non-commercial version. 

I will try that and see.

Much appreciated!

Bill

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

DesignSpark is free and not tied to cloud.

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

The link to Fusion360 I posted in my first answer takes you directly to a page where you register for free license.

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

Hi All,

I tried to get started on Fusion 360. The complexity of this program is great and the instructional videos were not helpful (please remember that I am a Noob and want to create a very simple part). The tutorial videos are confusing and expects the student to have greater familiarity than I have. After a couple hours, I gave up and went onto FreeCAD.

In FreeCAD I was able to create a hollow 40mm X 20mm tube with a 1mm wall in 30 minutes (See, I'm not as dumb as you thought I was in the above paragraph).

Here is my Issue: I have created the hollow rectangular tube (pipe) but one end remains SOLID and I cannot figure out how to remove the solid end.

Could someone please suggest the simplest way that I can accomplish this?

I have attached my file for reference.

The next step is to place a "lip" on the 2 short sides of one end and add holes for mounting my rectangular speaker.

Thank You All!

Bill

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

Sorry, I got "File Type is Not Allowed" on the attachment.

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

Fusion 360 is very easy and intuitive once you understand a few things, I suggest you stick with it. 

Here is how to create a simple hollow rectangle in F360, there are probably other ways to do this that are even more simple but here is how I would approach it:

**Some images will be cut off, click to open to full size

1) Create a sketch, this allows you to basically draw in 2 dimensions.

2) select which plane you want to draw on, doesn't really matter for this but I chose the base plane (XZ).

3) Sketch a rectangle using this tool, the image says we can draw a rectangle using 2 constraint points, that will be the length and width.

4) Define our length and width dimensions, either by dragging or typing in the numbers.

5) once you are happy with your 2D sketch, click Finish Sketch.

6) Now turn the 2D drawing into a 3D shape, use the "Extrude" tool to basically raise the shape from the surface.

7) Click on the sketch with the extrude tool and define how tall you want your rectangle to be.

8) Now we have a solid box, turn turn it into a sleeve, use the "Shell" tool.

9) Click on the top surface of the box and define how thick you want the sides to be.

10) To save the object as an STL, find the it in the "Bodies" section of the left panel, it will automatically be named Body1. Right click and "Save as STL"

If you want it to look nicer you can add some chamfers or fillets to the edges:

And if you need to add other holes or cutouts to the rectangle, you can start a new sketch on any of the surfaces and the negatively extrude the sketch to 'cut' the shape

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

Oh and to answer your specific question in F360, select the base you want to remove and hit delete or just negatively extrude it and cut it out 

Alternatively to make a tube, sketch the rectangle and use the offset tool to define the wall thickness. Then extrude the walls:

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

WOW!

Thank you malcmcm for your quick and informative reply.

I do appreciate the effort and step-by-step instructions. However, the end product is still a "box" (only one open side) and not a "tube"(two open sides at the narrow ends).

Following your instructions still gets me to where I am now. Please see screen capture of my object from both ends attached.

Thank you for the superlative effort!

Best Regards,

Bill

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

Sorry!!!

The last 2 images showed up "late" and were not with the first images you sent.

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

For this type of simple shape, I find it much easier with OpenSCAD, although if you are not a programmer you will probably hate it! A bonus is easy and exact parametrization.

RE: Help Please RE: Printing a Small Rectangular Tube

@billvitez96

Official Fusion360 tutorials are confusing AF, and they spend majority of beginners course teaching you how to manage projects and teams. I really recommend Learn Fusion 360 Or Die Trying tutorial on Youtube should you decide to give F360 a chance - presenter makes a bit long-winded explanations and it will require some time as videos are fairly long, but they were immensely helpful when I tried to learn working with this program. It teaches basics and principles from the ground up. The only downside is that Fusion has now slightly changed interface but read comments and someone had certainly posted what needs to be done in F360 2020.