SolveSpace - Start with 3D Desging & printing

1. 1 Intro: This practical project is tailored for beginners and serves an excellent introduction to the robust capabilities of So space. We skip the theory and jump right into hands on experience with So space CRD software. Throughout this course, you will be designed a customized housing for enclosure for U IOT device like an ESB 32. Discover the open source power of So space and develop essential CRD skills while we focusing on the project from its starts. 2. 2 Download SolveSpace : Let's start in this series by downloading the program. So Space looks at the very first glimpse, a little bit old Scollon, nostalgic, but don't judge the book according to its cover. Hold on a little bit and go the journey in the open Source environment with me. So Space is a paramedic two D three DCD system, which is really awesome here. So Space.com download. We have the version for Windows, Linux, MX. Under Windows, it's really easy. Just download the file and it's an X. Just run it and that's it, no installation is required. Then you can copy in save Soul space somewhere where you want to copy it and on your disk and so that you can find it later on and can just started here for higher performance, but I don't think you needed. There is also some open MPs included for OS. There is file which you also can directly use it. Then the Linux you can use when you are using Debian distribution, the Snap store, or in my case with Linux Mint, you can use the flat Tap Packet Manager and can get here the newest version. I really recommend to take a closer look here under the tutorius, which when you are completely new to it gives you good and rough overview of what is. So space are capable. Also, short glimpse into the chain log can discover what they are planning to do with this app. And as you can see, we have here the last update, 2022. But it's okay because it's just simple CID mechanism. As you can see in the next steps. The simplicity of the program makes it white, so cool. And of course, it's open source. You don't need active Internet connection when during your CID sketching, et cetera. This is what I really like. Good license to use it commercially and open source, that means everything is on UPC and not distributed during cloud service. 3. 3 Base plate: We start in this project by opening the program. One of the first steps, what we're doing is we click here on view and we enable the property browser. This little window is the property browser. If it's not showing up, it might be that this property browser is on an other display of view. When you have more displays, it could be happened. This was, in my case, the next step, What we are doing here. You can see here on the left upper part, all of my input I'm making with the keyboard order mouse will be displayed so they can follow me along. Because it's really convenient to use shortcuts instead of going with the mouse always to the left. I'm not explaining too much about all of the stuff here and solve space. We are jumping right into the project so that you get a good overview and how you can use it and how easily you can use it. First of all, we go here on the rectangle part. Then just somewhere we are opening here and rectangle with left click and left click. What we can do now is we can select one of the lines, for example the upper line, and then we click here on Symmetry. The constraint to the symmetry means that we have now attached this line exactly on this axis. I can't change the length of it, but it is always here constrained to the middle point. And this can be done also with this line. Just type in y, now we have a completely centered rectangle. You also can see that we have here and V and H. That means that this line is horizontal constraint and he vertical constraint. You also can see in the property browser that we have here degrees of freedom. Two degrees of freedom means I can change the length and the width. This is just an information, but for extrusion for later on, it's good indication if we have to enter here something more. For example, I would like to type in here now or restrict the width. Therefore, click on the line, and then we are using this icon now can constrain the length. For example, with 30, I can do the same thing with this line. Click on it, for example is the short cut. And then we type in 12. Now I have perfectly fitted my base for my enclosure. 4. 4 Extrude and process into a housing: The next step is that we click here on extrude with the middle mouse. You can now par here in the three D field by holding the middle key. Now we can click here because it's not really defined in which area this will be extruded. And with the left, with the right mouse, you can par it also in the direction with the mouse out. Now I click on the height, click on D. I want the height to be 42. This will be the measurements of former enclosure. Now I would like to have here spare part so that all the components fit in. Therefore, with the middle mouse, I would like to go here to the top. I'm clicking here on one of the points and two lines. Now by selecting this, the program knows exactly that I want to draw. Now on this side, because it's not possible with the selection to go on this side, we are indicating I want to draw here on this side, now we want to click on the new group. That means also that we opening here a new group segment. This is what. So space is all about, just step by step, adding here new groups. Now I'm here. You see the design is changed. Now with the middle mouse, we can just point in this red area and with a I can switch back to the view of the top. What I'm doing now, I want to make here spare parts. There are many ways to do that. First of all, I'm taking a rectangle. I'm just making a rectangle. I don't like to grab here some points because I'm often not sure if this works correctly. This is my approach. Then I'm making here two lines. Now I'm not clicking on the left mouse key, I'm clicking here on the right Mosk. This is just one line, next line. Click on it and right click on it. We are clicking on one of the lines and hitting the button. Or you can click on here. That means it's just on helping line and construction line. The same with that line here. It's not vertical aligned, we selecting this line and click on. Now what I'm doing is I click, for example, this point, This right point on this from the rectangle and I'm pushing the button for middle. I can do the same with this side and this side hitting M. Now the same thing with this point and this point and point and line. Now I have a good rectangle which could be aligned here in the middle. What I'm doing now, I'm hitting here in this construction, line D to enter here one and also on this side D and one, now I have a perfect centered second rectangle. And this will be my inner part because with 1 millimeter size thickness, it's good enough here to go with this little boxing. Now we click on Trout middle mouse from the middle button. Now I'm click on Difference. This is now the way. So space deletes here the inner part. And I have to constrain here the length of the extrusion. Therefore, I'm clicking here on this side, clicking on D. Now I could measure before the length if I have forgotten it, but it was 42. Now I would like to enter here 41. And I have a good part for my enclosure, and this in very simple manner. I clickon home, and now I have here my few groups. 5. 5 cut out for button: We can also click here on Troot, for example. As was the first extrusion, I could change here the opacity, because I would like to have 0.5 and also the color I would like to change here in orange. For example, clicking on home. And the same thing with this inner part. The opacity should only be 0.3 and it could be in gray. Now I have here a little better view on this. Then the next point will be here for the button. Therefore, we are selecting, as we did before, the second side was the fourth one. I'm clicking here on this whole side, on this side, and under the point so that I can now sketch on this face. Clicking on New Group, we're seeing that the design is changed. Now I can start over again with sketching. And I would like to do now here the spare part of I can switch here, maybe you can see the spare part for the button I would like to add. Let's dig a little bit deeper into the line segments. Now, I'm clicking with the left button, with the right button, left, left. I'm making a rough sketch here and close it. Now we can select this one. Now it was forced. It should be going back horizontal, horizontal, vertical. Just hitting the buttons on the keyboard. And now we are ready to go. But now we have many degrees of freedom, eight of them. The first thing, what I would like to say is that this line and this line should be equal in the length. And therefore, I'm clicking constrain equal length, or q. Also this line and this line should be in the same length. You can see we have only six degrees of freedom when I'm changing this now, the lines will be equal in the length. I can constrain our lengths. And I would like to have here 0.5 It was, in my case, a good example. So when we would like to constrain this part, we click on one line, on one point, line in line. This won't happen. We always have to click on line one point, then D, and also here 0.5 What we do now is we have here four degrees of freedom. I would like to define here, this line. Jump to this side, it's a little bit more better. 13 for example. Also the outer line should also be 13. For this case, now I have two degrees of freedom. Because I can switch all of this as before. We can now do it in different ways. I would like to show you a different way with clicking on the point segment. Click somewhere, point now selecting the point and this line and click. And now we have here and center point. With this center point, we can, for example, also click on this line and click on, for example. Let's see if it doesn't work with. Okay, always working. That means we are selecting the constrain point on line. The middle point is now constrained to this middle line. If you don't have it, make for example a new line construction line. Now, um, it's okay. Now I have one degree of freedom because I can change the length. And this could also be done here with point and line D. Now I would like to change, for example, five. This is now my sparing part for the button, for example, we are not finished yet. We now click on Route. We click on Difference. Now I would like to have just from the length, one of the lines. Click D one because it should only be one in the depth. Because this is the side of my, the thickness but it's a little bit too thick. I think what's going on here? Selecting this point in this phase and clicking, I'm going back once again by restricting the line with the number. I'm clicking on this point, on this phase, once again this phase. And then hitting, we constrain it to this length, and now we're ready to go. This is not why it was not a good idea to change the opacity. Jumping back here to the opacity, Stan hitting for example, 0.6 enter and now we can see it's aligned with this inner box. I switched before the opacity so it was also right with one in the thickness. Just a little detour. Okay, now we already and attached here the buttons bearing. 6. 6 Adding Text which is printable to your housing: By selecting three on your keyboard, you can get here to the start position, to this view where we can see our current drawing. What we want to do now is adding some text to this box so that it's a little bit more individual. Therefore, we're selecting one point. For example, this phase, we're clicking here on this new group segment, and now we are back on. The Catching what we can do now is I would suggest we are opening a new rectangle. This rectangle we are selecting and click on, this is just construction line. Then hitting for vertical line, right click. Going back, I'm attaching it directly. That means from this point to this point. For example, hitting hitting vertical, horizontal. And now we have a perfect constraint also on this side, This one, clicking on Horizontal, horizontal, clicking on this line, this line, and setting it equal. Now we could change here the size of it. And now we are able to adhere some text, for example, round about this side. Keeping up this point to this point. Now with going to clicking on Home, click Select the Text. Now I could change here the text. For example, selecting here a different font. What I would like to have not entered by constraining it to such a rectangle also changes the font. And it is directly, in my opinion, perfectly fitted here. Now what we do is we click on Extrude. Of course, we can extrude it, or in my case, even better, I click on Different and selecting the size of it just by 0.0 This will give the printer perfect. In my case with the per M four, just slightly difference in the surface that the text is here. Nicely done. You also can extrude it, but there will be a lot of support material which is not really good. In the case three, this is now our finished box. 7. 7 Adding chamfer afterwards: But what if you want to champ for here some of these lines? This is also possible with soul space by clicking on the property browser. And we're jumping back to the very first beginning by clicking on one of these points. So that we have here our basis sketch. And as you can see, all of the previous things are here, They are not deleted. But we can edit now our first sketch by clicking in. Now what we are able to do is we can add here some arcs. Therefore, clicking here on this Arcymb, we can choose here our settings. I don't want to choose radius automatically. I would like to change, for example, let's try five Enter. Now I click on the first point, click on this, create an arc. Now I have here the perfect dimension, but I want to jump back with control and set. I want to click once again and change the setting. Let's go with two, selecting one point. There is no possible way to do it in all together, but you can use the short cut. It's what is the shortcut shift? And a also shift and A. Now the magic begins because we click on home. Now we're switching back to our finished extrusion example. We have here the perfect rounded corners. By jumping back to the first thing, I can click on de Oil. This is now what we can do. Of course we have to take a closer look. If the text is already in on this rounding, we could add the edits, but in my case, I don't want here. This round corners jumping back with control C and then going back to this one. This is what I would like to have here. 8. 8 Simply design a lid: You don't see do Of course you see double. But what I would like to show you now is how we can easily now add lid to this box. Therefore, I copied the whole file of the box, renamed it to lit. What we are doing now, we are jumping back in the history of creating our box, for example, to the extrusion. Now we can he going further with working on our Lit, for example. I don't want to for the tour, I would like to have double click on the size it should be to. Now I'm clicking on this side, then we are adding here new group. I'm setting up here some rectangle so that we can snip it in and click it in a little bit better. Therefore, two lines. Second line with right click with the mouse, the horizontal vertical. Then we have, this is horizontal. Okay. Now, this point should be in the middle point. And this point also in the middle point and middle. And also this point and this side middle. Then what can we do now? But it's not restricted to horizontal, horizontal. Now we have it now. We can constrain it to, for example, side with one, as this side with one, we can click on x root. I would like to have D 1.5 This is now perfect lid which snaps in. Additional to that, if you would like to save here a little bit of filament, we could do some extra work by clicking on Do the Same Thing. Again, that meaning new group making. Here in rectangle, I did the same with this inner rectangle. Now we extrude it. I could say here with difference, I would like to go here. How much? Let's see, for example, with two is too much. No, let's do 1.5 Then we have really nice. Once again, click on this 11.5 A little sparing part. That's it. 9. 9 Don't forget to delete the history: One major point is really necessary when you're following me in this approach. When you're clicking on Home, you can see here a lot of different unactivated points. This is from our box, this have to be deleted. Click on it, delete this point. We have to delete all of these points that we are only the things what we want to have here. This is also then necessary when we want to assemble here. Things are now I think and this last point, also on deleting. Then we can click here on De Oil, and now we are finished with our lid. 10. 10 Assembly box and lid: Now we want to assemble everything together. But before we can do that, each of the files we should click on Show All, so that we have all of the points accessible because we need them in the new file. Then we're creating a new file. For example, assembly. We can click here on this button, that new group assembly files. I've selected the box as an S LV S file. The first thing what we're doing is we are lining their origins. Click on the original. From the file, from the box and from the document. Then we're hitting the point. It's called constrain normal in same orientation. This is necessary that we can use the constraints for both of the documents. Then later on, next step is adding the next file. It's the lit, the lit displaced somewhere here. I'm moving it right away. Just grab one of the points. Now I'm getting to one of the points which has an error. I try to catch the error. Let's see if we can move it, really. Is it here? Yes, I would like to flip it over, just in a rough direction then move it up. What we're doing now, we also have align it. We click on this line because I would like to align here the horizontal, the set axis, and this line. And we align it. What we can do now, we can constrain it. For example, I take the right, the upper right. Let me see, is this correct? Yes, this point should be aligned to this point. Then both are selected. Then we can click here on Constrain Point on line. Now it will fit perfectly here. I have here the constraints. That means the orientation and coincident. And click on it. Then hitting Delete, so that we can just move it around as we would like. But this is an easy way that we can move it directly to this point. Now with the opacity and 0.7 I think we can see if it's everything fitting together or not. We could adhere some assembly in a separate file. And the good thing is when we are changing something in the original file, it will be after refresh, new opening also is refreshed here in the simplify. So it's also a reference.