Taylor
First off, your product is simply amazingly good - it is exactly what I was looking for.
My only reservation is that its very hard to find answers to all the stupid questions I have by looking in the help section. Hope you don't mind if I ask some pretty basic stuff. My main issues (now I have started to understand where all the functions are) is around organising my work flow, so I wonder if you could give me some advice on best practice.
I have a number of components (which I designed initially using AutoCAD) - the basic idea is that there is a single casing into which various different inserts can be added to change the function of the combined unit. Apart from a couple of bolts and fasteners the unit is designed to be printed from STL files.
My project plan is to:
- print out sets of casings plus inserts,
- fit a set of casings and inserts into a prototype vehicle
- test them
- refine the design
- repeat until I am happy.
There is a single casing design and five different inserts. The inserts have some common parts but also unique parts. All this translates into 5 assemblies each made up of a casing plus a different insert and each insert is made up of a combination of common and unique parts.
What I want to do is to be able to arrange the various files so that I just change things once and then go to print.
I'm at the end of the first iteration and it will take a few weeks to complete the testing so any advice here on how best to arrange all the files would be very much appreciated so I dont confuse myself further in the next design round and I have got a little time to re-organise.
A supplemtary question is about the STL files. They look great when I check them, with very few errors. Is this the same software used by AutoCAD to create STL files? I got excellent results when I printed from AutoCAD generated files - I've been using netfabb to error check and the files - do you think that is really necessary? Have you got plans to provide similar checking capability?
Bryan
Fusion
