Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Tutorial: Getting Started with CAD: Making a Dice Case!”.
[ Applause ] welcome back so today, I’m going to show you how you can get started, making things on your own with just a simple case for the setup dice. Also, if you haven’t seen it yet, I did an interview with Brian Adamson, a maker who breaks into buildings for a living and has been on the show BattleBots. It is a great conversation and he talked about how he got to where he is now. By doing a bunch of different projects where each one either refined a skill that he learned in the past or helped him learn a new skill that he needed to move on to the next thing. My name is Summit and I make videos about tech and making that you can check out down in the description, but before we get into it. I just want to thank SolidWorks and their 3D experience SolidWorks for makers platform for sponsoring this video. I think a big takeaway from talking to Brian is that you should always start somewhere small, since each project is either gon na teach you a new skill or it’ll build on those that you’ve already learned and 3D experience. Solidworks, for makers is a great place to get started with Cad and as a good first project. I’M going to show you how I made this case for the set of DnD dice that I have.
I think this is a good project to get started with, since it’s pretty customizable, and it covers like the basic things that you need to know in CAD that you can then take and apply on any other project like phone stands or coasters. But before we get into the design, we need to measure like The Real World objects that we’re designing around I’m using a pair of calipers for this, but it doesn’t really need to be super exact. You could probably just use a ruler. I just need to get the size of the largest die, which is about 20 millimeters across, and I’m going with the largest die for this since it’ll, make it easier to put them back in the case later on, you can put them back in any of the Slots as opposed to matching them up with the right footprint, also before I jump into the 3D modeling I like to start with a sketch, so I have the dimensions planned out.
I like a general direction of where I’m going to be going with the model. I’M thinking a hexagonal shape with one in the middle, so we can keep the overall footprint as small as possible and still fit seven Dice and for the dimensions. I think I’m gon na go 22 millimeters across for each one and leave a two millimeter wall in between them.
This should be plenty strong, for what I’m doing with it, and it’ll also give the overall width of the case, which is 74 millimeters. Also so I’m just going to add in my magnets, each one has a diameter of six millimeters and a thickness of 3.2 millimeters. Now that I have the measurements and the concept I can get started with the actual modeling. So here I have 3D experienced SolidWorks for makers X, design and it’s fully cloud-based. So you can access your files from any browser and you don’t have to worry about whether or not your computer can actually run a CAD program locally.
When you open up a new file, you have a pretty standard CAD interface with the design tray on the left. That pretty much tracks everything that you’ve done, the navigation Cube on the top right. So you can move around your model and the toolbar on the bottom, which is where you’ll find all the tools and commands that you need now. There’S a ton of different ways to go about making this, I’m just going to show you one way and it’s by no means the right way, but please do comment down below if you have any tips for someone just getting started, I’m going to start with the Middle hexagon and then work out from there using it as reference for everything else, so I’ll make a new sketch on the XY plane and using the polygon tool, I’m going to make a hexagon that’s 22 millimeters across this gives a couple millimeters of Tolerance.
Just so, the dice can slide in and out easily and for the other 6 I’m going to reference off this first one. So I’ll draw one line vertically and one line roughly at the angle, that’s in between those and I’m giving each of these a length of 24 millimeters since each hexagon is 22 millimeters across and we want a two millimeter Gap in between each one. 24 millimeters will put us right in the center of the next hexagon that I want to draw and for that middle angled line, I can use the dimension tool to give it a 60 degree angle from vertical, since I’m using hexagons. This will put it right in the middle of that angled segment. Now I’m just going to repeat that for the rest of the lines all the way around, and then I can select them all right click and make them construction lines. These are pretty much just like temporary objects that you can reference when you’re, making or positioning other things in your sketch, like I will be for the rest of the hexagons, which I can just go ahead and draw with their centers at the ends of each of These lines also quick note when you’re drawing an X design, you get this little V, that pops up and that’s to indicate that whatever you’re drawing is perfectly vertical to the origin, and I just went ahead and made sure that I had this for all the hexagon Under those drawings, I knew that they were perfectly aligned.
Now all I need to do is make the actual outline for the main body. So I’m just going to make another hexagon from the center that’s 74 millimeters across and we can finally turn it into a 3D object. So I’m going to select the part of the sketch that I want extruded go down to the features tab in the toolbar and hit extrude the direction here doesn’t really matter.
Since it’s the first body I have in the design and I’m going to reference off of it for the other parts, so I just want to make sure that the distance is set to 22 millimeters, and this makes a new body with all the cutouts that I Designed, but there’s no bottom for that, I’m going to make a new sketch on the bottom and draw another 74 millimeter hexagon that lines up with the one that I already have. You can also project the existing shape that you have into your sketch and use that which I’ll show you when I mix the lid, but I wanted to show you that you can do these tasks in like multiple different ways. There’S no like right way to do it now, I’m just going to extrude it two millimeters away from the main body, so I don’t cut into that 22 millimeters that we need for the height and, unlike earlier I’m going to make sure it’s set to add so That these two are joined into a single body.
I’M also going to go ahead and add a fillet which is kind of just a round over to the edges of the hexagon about 10 millimeters. Just to make this not as sharp when you’re holding it. Now that I have the main body I can move on to the lid for that, I’m going to start with a sketch on the top face and then I’ll select all the edges, including the rounded ones, right click and hit this icon for convert entities, which is Just going to project all that geometry, I selected to the current sketch, so I can reference what I already have, rather than try to recreate it. Now.
I can just extrude that whole sketch upward five millimeters as a new body, and this will give us just enough room to embed the magnets, speaking of which I’m just going to hide the lid I just made by right clicking and hitting this eyeball icon. Make a new sketch on the top of the main body and make a six millimeter Circle in one corner, along with a couple of horizontal and vertical lines to use as reference. Now I’m going to go down to the toolbar and mirror that Circle first horizontally and then vertically I could just draw two circles and make them six millimeters in diameter. But this lets me get the placement I want with the first Circle and then that’s automatically mirrored to the the other one.
We just have an extra Circle in the middle as like an intermediary step. Now, I’m just going to select the two circles. I actually want to use and extrude them 3.25 millimeters, which is just a bit bigger than the magnets and cut them out of the main body. Once that’s done, I’m going to hide the body by right, clicking and selecting the eyeball and unhide the lid using the design tree and then cut the same circles.
Out of that, these are kind of large magnets for what they’re doing and you can definitely go smaller. I just have a few of these left over from an old project, but that’s pretty much it for the basic design before I print it, though, I’m just going to add some fillets and chamfers to help with the Aesthetics and, like I mentioned earlier, this is just One way to make this you could tweak and customize this design a ton of different ways, so it fits exactly what you’re looking for I’m pretty happy with how it is right now, so I’m just going to print it out, but before I do that, I’m going To take a sec to thank the sponsor of this video SolidWorks with their 3D experience, SolidWorks for makers platform, which includes X, design that I’ve been using here for a fully cloud-based experience X, shape for more organic modeling and a ton of other tools, including a full Version of SolidWorks that you can install locally on your machine all for 9.99, a month or 99 a year. There will be a link down below the like button for 20 off when you first buy it. Personally, I really like cloud-based CAD, especially how well X design runs on my iPad.
I feel like being able to pinch to zoom and rotate around my model, just feels so much more intuitive than using a keyboard and mouse, and if I’m working out of like a coffee shop, there’s usually Wi-Fi and my iPad is a much more portable setup. As opposed to taking a full laptop with me so getting back to the model, I ended up printing this on the prusa mini at a 0.2 millimeter layer height in this silk pink pla from hatchbox, and I think it came out great now. All I need to do is pop in the magnets, which I did by first, putting two of them together for each side and then pressing them in this just helps make sure that they’re actually lined up properly and they don’t repel each other, and, like I mentioned This is super customizable, so I actually have a few different variations here for this first one I kept everything the same, but I just cut out my logo from the top of the lid for this next one. I ended up messing with the Phillips and chamfers just a bit and adding the make robot to the top of it, and for these last two I actually ended up doing a filament swap mid print it so that the logos came through in a different color. Overall. This is a really great project to get started with when you’re learning Cad – and I hope you learned something this video that you can take with you into your next project, also, whether you use SolidWorks 3D experience for makers or another CAD software, you should check out Their made in 3D online community, which is great to connect with other makers, share your work, learn some tips and tricks and just get inspired by all the cool projects. People are making out. There also be sure to like And subscribe down below, for more videos about 3D printing making and other cool DIY projects.
Here’S a video about making print in place gears and here’s a video that YouTube thinks you’re gon na, like the best .