Help an old beginner please... simple part, hurts my brain.

[Anonymous]

I would like help getting an idea about the process of creating a simple bracket designed to clamp around a 1/2" square steel tube that also has 4 holes to let me mount a simple accessory to at a later date. 

Here is a link to what I have so far:

http://a360.co/1z332sa

Basically what I have attached is the top piece for the bracket. 

My questions: 

1. what is the smart way to get a grid of holes centered on a face? I eventually created a rectangle in sketch mode with a bunch of extra construction lines that I set to be equal.

2. What is the correct way to determine the depth needed for countersunk holes? i.e. the angled portion of the hole?

3. what is the smart way to begin this sketch in general?

4. I brought in a single screw frokm McMaster Carr... what is the correct way to align a screw so that it fits into each of the two through holes?

5. How best to bring in screws from McMaster that will be used as mounting screws?

6. What is the smart way to design the bottom part of my bracket?

6a. for the bottom I hope to design in a hex nut that fits tightly in a cavity of the bottom bracket.

7. at what point should the top or bottom be defined as a component?

8. Basically anything that shows the smart/fast/easy way to begin thinking about modellling a simple two piece bracket. (I have watched many of the getting started videos and none seem to cover exactly my situation, at least as far as I can tell.)

9. I intend to have this 3d printed once I have a decent upper and lower piece designed. Any tips on that are also appreciated.

I also attached a picture in case the link doesn't work for some reason.

I am very thankful to any help/response/advice you can offer.

Mahalo,

Dennis

[ADSKDJW4]

Hello Dennis2012,

I would like to welcome you to the forum and thank you for posting your questions for Fusion. My answers to these are below and please reply to let me know if these were helpful?

1. If the values for the holes share the same X,Y dimension values from each other, then you can create the hole once and use a pattern command. Located under the "Create" area

2.The information for the angles need to be obtained from a ANSI, ISO, DIN, etc. standard which at this time needs to be entered by user. There are no screw calculations that are automatic at this tme in Fusion

3. If you use the Hole command then you would be selecting the flat surface on which you would start the drill down from. Screen shot above first option is to select the surface.

4. This would be a Joint command. Select screw and hole on base to line them up.

5. This is a manual process as for finding the ones you want to use. Then insert them into Fusion. There is no standard checking to validate the screw like in Inventor at this time for Fusion.

6 and 6a Create solids in the part then break them away into an assembly by writing them out as components.

Then

7. I am not sure this really matters as the initial sketch can be redefined onto another work-plane if needed.

8. In my opinion, start with a part file; create the needed bodies to represent the 2 piece clamp. Then write these out as components to create the assembly file like shown in answer 6. You can use “Project” command to find the locating features from one part to another.

9. Are you looking to understand what’s needed to obtain 3D printing information? Can you clarify this a bit more?

Best Regards,

Don Warner

[Anonymous]

Not really helpful.

1. You said to use a pattern, which I did, but not a good way to get the hole pattern centered on a face?

2. Helpful, thanks

3. Your answer to 3 didn't seem to match the question I asked?

4. Not helpful. Select where on the part and where on the screw to line them up? I'm not getting it. I really need to see an example I think of aligning a countersunk screw into a thru hole.

5. Neither helpful nor not helpful. My question wasn't very clearly formed in my head... 

6. and 6a. Possibly helpful? Again I need an example... not sure how exactly to break them away or whatever it is you mentioned? I'll play with this some today to try and understand.

7. Helpful.

8. Possibly helpful. Will need to play with the Project command. Not quite getting how to use it yet. Its intimidating, I've seen it used in the tutorial videos.

9. I've never 3d printed something before. Wondering how to set each component up for printing/not have it try to 3d print screws or whatever, just the bodies.

Thank you for trying to help. I still need more help though. The part I attached has taken me hours... I think i'm really slow so far. Like I need to see the 'smart' way to start thinking about modeling a fairly simple 2 piece part. I mean, I could have built this in the actual world in far less time than i've spent trying to model it to have it printed out. 

Thanks much,

Dennis

[JamieGilchrist]

Hi Dennis,

Welcome to Fusion.  I'll do my best to finish answering some of your questions here in  a couple of posts responses.

question 1. what is the smart way to get a grid of holes centered on a face? I eventually created a rectangle in sketch mode with a bunch of extra construction lines that I set to be equal.

Your approach was correct using sketches. there's a few of methods, however, to make this a bit simpler.

1.  the good ol' calculate method, effective, but prone to error.

2.  use offset curve to create your centered grid outline.  The mage below on the left uses this method.  I turned the offset curves into construction lines; you can toggle lines to regular/construction in the sketch palette (not pictured here).

3. Similar in principle to the offset curve, but a little more tedious (above image on right).  find the center point of the face then use a center point rectange to draw your grid box.

Once you have done this you can reference to corners for your four holes.  I would, in your model, probably not use the pattern for just four holes. 

I made a copy of your model using some simplified workflows.  I'll make  avideo later today to show you what I did.

[Anonymous]

using the offset method i'm not quite sure how to wind up with a side that is a precise dimension? i.e. if one side of my starting hunk of material was 6x6 inches and i needed a centered rectangle of holes that were 1"x.75" I'm not seeing how to make that work...

but using the make an X on the material and use a center point rectangle I can definately see how that works for any rectangular shape 

looking forward to the video!  really struggling to see how to add screws and align them to my empty holes... or how to get my bottom part of a clamp started.

so far great advice!

dennis

[Anonymous]

Hey Dennis,

as a general rule I remove the threads from all my screws, makes them much faster and easier to work with!

[schneik-adsk · Accepted solution]

I created a How to video that shows one way to create this design. Hope it help with some concepts and tips 'n tricks to learn Fusion 360

Link to youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=962yh0eHs3Q

Embeded video:

[Anonymous]

Best modeling video I have ever seen!  Thank you!

[GPTech2444]

That was an excellent video, thanks.