What software are most people using?

[Bratag]

Ok Fusion 360 people - I have a box with filleted corners... I would like to put a bead around the top edge of the box of say 1mm. How in the name of all that is good and holy can you sketch on a curved surface, I need to create essentially a line at 1mm from the top running around the entire top edge of the sides of the box. The sides are easy enough to do - but then I hit that curved surface and I hit a brick wall. This seems like something you should be able to do but

a) The manual for Fusion 360 was written by ... well I don't know what but it sucks
b) I have tried every plane addition known to man and while I can draw some construction lines for a start and end point of the bisecting arc ... I cant get the point on the curve itself correct.

Any ideas would be much appreciated at this point

[jsc]

Not sure I understand exactly what you're trying to do. Something like this?

box.jpg (172.1 KiB) Viewed 9399 times

1. Use Offset Plane under Construct to put a plane 1mm from the top.
2. Project the outlines of the box to the plane.
3. Offset the outline by some distance.
4. Extrude your new sketch by the thickness of the bead, joining to the box.
5. Use fillet on the top and bottom edges to taste.

An alternative construction that will let you control the profile of the bead:

1. Construct a vertical midplane between any two of the opposite side faces.
2. Sketch a circle (or any bead profile you want) on that plane somewhere along one of the walls.
3. Create->Sweep using your bead outline as the profile and the top edge of the box as the path.

[Bratag]

Not exactly what I was after but that's probably because what I wanted was an incorrect methodology. The item I am trying to model is a cell phone case where the lip I am creating is around the inside rim of the box so it sticks out say 2mm where the wall of the box should be 1.5mm thick , so that when the phone is pressed past the rim it clips under the lip and stays in place.

My original thought was to create a walls of 2mm thick, create a division at the appropriate lip location and simply push the lower portion back 0.5mm giving me the correct dimensions. Hence my original need to draw on the curve.

The bigger issue here I think is I am still trying to wrap my head around all the diff ways to do CAD. I am not used to non linear thinking As a developer I tend to think in straight lines.

I did come up with a solution that seemed to work, but yours seems far more elegant. I will give it a shot tonight. Thanks

[jsc]

You can use either of the two methods I outlined to do that. The first method aligns more with what you came up with: using offset plane and project. You will probably want to put some angle on the bottom surface of the rim to make for better printability, however.

[Bratag]

You can use either of the two methods I outlined to do that. The first method aligns more with what you came up with: using offset plane and project. You will probably want to put some angle on the bottom surface of the rim to make for better printability, however.

I was using the fillet tool to angle the rim, it seemed to work pretty well.

Do you have some tutorials you recommend? I have been watching a few here and there on youtube but most of them assume I have a basic knowledge of the app and the tools and that is not the case.

Most of all I think I need to wrap my head around the whole CAD process. Somewhat frustrating

[jsc]

I found the Fusion 360 tutorial videos quite helpful: http://fusion360.autodesk.com/learning/index.html. Although mostly I'm too impatient to go through a ton of videos. I think I remember watching their utility knife video to learn parametric modeling and the lamp one for surfacing. There's also the PDF Training Guides at that same link, which I hadn't seen before. The main thing is to know what tools are available and what they do, and watching the videos will expose you to them all eventually. For example, I bet if you had known of (or remembered) about either construction planes or the sweep tool, you would have figured out one or both of my proposed methods yourself.

I did what you're doing: pick something to model and figure out how to do it.

Onshape also has a decent set of video tutorials that may be helpful. Many of the core concepts are shared among this style of modeler (Fusion 360, OnShape, SolidWorks); I'd say the first seven videos here cover 90% of what you need to know: https://www.onshape.com/learn/tutorials. Assemblies are useful when you get into multi-part models, but work a little differently in each modeler.

[Bratag]

Just a shout out of thanks. With your help I was finally able to start wrapping my head around Fusion and things went a lot quicker with my 4th prototype. I believe I may be getting close