One of our first projects was to use inventor and sketch six widgets. The widgets kept getting more and more complicated to. It was a little frustrating at times but I managed to get through it. Now I am going to tell you how I sketched one of my widgets. Start out by opening inventor and clicking on new and then standard ipt.
1. The first thing I did was open up inventor and created a new part. 2. After that I chose the xy plane to sketch on which is the one I was always told to start with. 3. When done with that choose the line tool and start to draw the outline of widget. You can either tell how the program how long you want the line right away or you can dimension it later. 4. For the first widget I waited to dimension it, which is totally fine. The first widget is just a "z" so sketch out a z on inventor and make sure when you make your lines that all your angles are at 90 degrees. 5. When done sketching the "z" you can dimension it. For every triangle was a 1/4 inch so that determined the lengths I dimension my widget. Choose the dimension tool and then click on the line you wish to dimension. Then type in the length of how long you want it to be. 6. When done with that, and your sketch looks like a z and has the correct dimensions. You then want to click on finish sketch. 7. This is the most important and final step in finishing the widget. You are going to have to extrude the sketch to give it the 3D effect. To do this you click on the extrude tool and you want to extrude it one inch and then press ok. 8. When done with extruding you can now save your part and name it. Below are some pictures that should help if you follow them right to left. At the way at the bottom are some other widgets I sketched in inventor. |
About InventorInventor is a computer program that lets you build a virtual sketch of anything you can imagine. Just have a design planned out in your head. You just have to learn how to use it and it gets pretty simple over time. You can use the additive or subtractive design principle in it.
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Thoughts About Inventor/3D PrintingUsing inventor to 3D print is actually really interesting to me. You can make anything you want as long as it is appropriate and able to be 3D printed. The whole process is really simple. I thought it would be a lot harder to 3D print something than it actually was. 3D printing is a very useful tool in designing a part, since you can actual see if the part will fit and work.
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