Draft angels automation?

[northsight]

Is there an opportunity to apply draft angles automatically?

Or how do you apply draft angles to your model?

[Oceanconcepts]

The only way I have found is to select the Draft tool under the Create menu in the Model workspace- it wants you to select a reference plane, then the faces to apply the draft to, and allows you to enter an angle.
Ron

[jakefowler · Accepted solution]

Hi northsight,

In addition to the Draft tool that Ron mentions, you can also apply a draft angle to any extruded geometry you create by defining a taper angle when performing the Extrude operation (you can specify this angle in the Extrude dialog box, or apply it directly by dragging the rotational glyph on the model).

I’m not sure if this is what you were thinking of as applying draft angles automatically. It’s possible that the functionality you had in mind isn’t something we currently offer inside Fusion 360 (if you have any more details, I can help to confirm that). If this is something new that you would like us to add to Fusion 360, it would be great if you can submit this request to our IdeaStation – this site is the best way to get ideas and suggestions to us, and is monitored directly by our product managers and designers (the team who decide what new features and enhancements we will add to Fusion 360 in future).

Many thanks for posting this, and let us know if you have any other questions or comments.

Kind regards,

Jake

[northsight]

Thank you for sharing this information with me, It will be a good way to add it while creating a model!

But, what if you have a finished model to which you want to add draft angles? I had just a simple model and adding draft angles afterwards plane by plane was a pain!

And of course you often do not know which direction is the best for demolding while creating. Do you know that before every time? Or ist this process part of special tooling construction CAD software modules?

I do not know because im an not an engineer and it is not my daily business. just sharing my small experiences as a hobbyist!

[jakefowler · Accepted solution]

Hi northsight,

The Draft tool in the Model workspace is designed to add draft angles to geometry that has already been created. You should be able draft many faces in a single operation, so you shouldn’t need to perform too many separate operations to fully draft a model. If you’re having trouble with this, and if you’re able to share the model with us, we could take a look at this to see why there might be difficulty here. (One quick tip: although the Draft tool is designed to maintain fillets on the model, if you draft the model before adding fillets, you might find it easier).

If you are creating a molded part, it’s usually best to plan ahead and consider the molding requirements during the design process. Sometimes parts will have a ‘natural’ pull direction (for the model you pictured, the direction aligned with the cylinders seems the most sensible). But without forward planning, you may encounter undercuts or features on the model that cannot be molded easily. While it still may technically be possible to mold the part, doing so could end up requiring complex & expensive tooling. (This is one key benefit of 3D printing – you don’t need to worry about any of this!).

For analyzing the ‘mold-ability’ of a model, you can use the Draft Analysis tool (in the Inspect menu on the toolbar). A model without draft angles applied may look something like this:

The red regions indicate faces where a draft angle should be applied. The ultimate goal is to have a model with all green regions connected and all blue regions connected (and no red regions), like this:

Your mold parting line will be where the green & blue regions meet.

If you have any more questions about this, let us know, we’ll be more than happy to help 🙂

Thanks!

Jake

[northsight]

To all of you thank you very much for your time and your efforts! I Will try that with my next models!

[Oceanconcepts]

"And of course you often do not know which direction is the best for demolding while creating. Do you know that before every time? Or ist this process part of special tooling construction CAD software modules?"

I just thought I would add, as someone who can still remember starting to work with injection molded designs, that quite soon you will find yourself thinking about moldability as a basic part of the conceptual process.  It's really best to have some idea about how you expect a part to come out of a mold, as it involves more than draft angles. 

Protomold, http://www.protomold.com has a series of good tutorials, aimed at beginners, covering designing parts for molding- look in their resources area. 

Ron