Picking a proper plane to sketch on

[Anonymous]

Hello everybody,

I am rather new to this Fusion thing, and though I have designed stuff, and printed them out on my 3D printer, I seem to be running into the same problems over and over again.

For my first post, I will ask a very...naive...question, and a way to start to get to know some of you.

When selecting a plane...how do you know WHICH plane to chose? 

By watching the training videos, it seems like people just pick any plane and start sketching.

Do you have to think about what your designing all the way to the end to plan accordingly? Or will any plane work?

Hopefully this is easy enough to understand for all of you that have experience with Fusion.

Thank you in advance for your help and time.

Ken

[etfrench]

Any plane, even custom designed, will work fine.  You can always rotate, move, or align the 3d component.  It won't hurt to have a plane plan 🙂

[Anonymous]

Thank you. That's what I was thinking, but wanted to be sure. Appreciate it.

[weshowe]

While it is certainly not the only way, I always draw on what will be the hot plate for the 3D printer. I make sure I have the correct plane I want selected by clicking the word "TOP" on the cube in the upper right corner. Then all you can see of the yellow plane select is the one that is sitting on the "earth" plane. Depending on what I am working on, I make a sketch on the plane and loft it into my basic shape.

I also use the cube click technique when I want to draw on other planes, say to make another solid to attach to my base one. It forces you into a complete side, front or top orientation so you never mess up and click the side when you meant the top. I did that too many times and had to reorient things or start over.

I don't always do CAD-style drawings this way, sometimes front is a better view to draft things in. But I prefer to model 3D printing projects the same way I need them when they are printed.

 - Wes

[Anonymous]

Can you elaborate on what you mean when you say "I make a sketch on the plane and loft it into my basic shape". Thank you.

[Beyondforce]

Hi @Anonymous,

The plane that you are using, is to help you with the Body/Component position. It's up to you to decide the position of the part.
But, incase you don't like the plane/position you have chosen, this video will show you, how to redefine the sketch/Body plane:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6DzhcG3LNs

Cheers / Ben
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[weshowe · Accepted solution]

Actually, I meant to say "make a sketch and extrude it into my basic shape". I also loft things, that takes two sketches on two planes. I am attaching a shape I lofted, the rectangle at the base has different dimensions that the one at the top, the bottom I drew on the "ground", the top I created a construction plane and selected that to sketch on, and applied loft to get the shape. It is no longer a body because I took the body and combined it with another body, using it for a cut, and I did not retain the tool. That gave me a properly sized void to shove the tang of a file into with a nice fit.

The other picture (the nut) came from a drawing where I used a polygon (6-sided) drawn on the ground, and I then extruded that sketch to my desired thickness. I placed a hole in it, then used the thread tool (with model checked) to create 12 mm threads (the size of the handle shafts on my milling machine). I chamfered the top and bottom edges and printed it out in ABS. It screwed onto the handle threads nicely.

So I used those techniques to make a threaded handle (3 of them) for my milling machine. They work fine, I seem to have run out of upload slots for the reply, so I can't attach a photo of the finished product. In all those cases the bottom end was on the glass hotplate, I used some hairspray for extra adhesion. I try to make the design fit the limits of 3D printing so I don't have to mess with supports and all that,

 - Wes

[Anonymous]

Thanks Ben! That is a handy information video. Appreciate it.

[Beyondforce · Accepted solution]

Great! I'm glad it helps 🙂

[Anonymous]

Thank you @weshowe...I appreciate your help.

Really good information.

I have been able to design & extrude a bolt and nut assembly before, but this will help later if I forget how to do that.