Aaron Mahler

So I have most of the zillion individual components sorted into labeled, standard #gridfinity bins in the workbench drawers now.

Now I'm delving into the custom holders for various tools and, frankly, it's a lot of fun. I gave tooltrace.ai a spin, but it was pretty buggy and not generating precise enough shapes for my tastes, so I'm just doing the designs myself in Fusion 360. I'm testing my own modified method and will share the workflow if it continues to work well.

#3dprinting

Mar 18 at 10:44pmWeb
Show threadChris Huck6d ago
@halfpress You should use the Gridfinity workbench in FreeCAD and kick Fusion to the curb.
Show threadAaron Mahler6d ago
@chrishuck glad you said this because FreeCAD is on my machine and has been high on my list to explore. I’ve been wanting to kick the Fusion habit for a good while. Maybe Gridfinity is the ideal opportunity and I wasn’t aware of this workbench you mention… thanks!
Show threadChris Huck6d ago

@halfpress Awesome! It makes creating custom bins and grids a lot easier. Turning on and off the stuff you need or don’t. You can use the Part Design workbench to make necessary cuts/additions to the bins or grids.

Here’s an example of some custom bearing press holders I made for a friend.

Show threadAaron Mahler6d ago
@chrishuck Nice! I was just looking at the Workbench GitHub and am eager to try it. I’m using a similar plugin for Fusion to generate my base bins, then either tracing images to extrude the sketch into the bin or modeling parts outright and using them as tools to cut from the bin body. I assume I’d use a similar workflow (?), but I need to get familiar with the FreeCAD UI and methodologies.
Show threadtheHastyOne6d ago

@halfpress so when I did this the process was as follows:

1 take picture
2 trace in inkscape
3 measure tool and use ruler in inkscape to scale.
4 import into OpenSCAD and scale to 1.02
5 linear extrude and difference from bin stl
6 print

Had much better results than tool trace ai

Bonus: print a 50x50x1.5 cube and use it in the picture as a scale

Show threadAaron Mahler6d ago

@ahasty I’m following a similar but slightly different path. I’m experimenting with using a flatbed scanner for the reference image with a small metric ruler in it for scaling accurately. It eliminates lens distortion and parallax issues I get using anything short of a telephoto at a distance.

The tracing happens in Fusion 360 currently and fundamentally follows a similar process to what you describe. Going to try FreeCAD as well since I’m curious to learn it.

Show threadtheHastyOne6d ago
@halfpress if I had a flatbed i would be using it! I mean..i had one..but its has been gone longer than the printer.
Show threadAaron Mahler6d ago

@ahasty This flatbed is actually an Epson inkjet multifunction printer that I abandoned as a printer eons ago. Got so sick of the ink hassles, but the scanner in it does flatbed but, more importantly, double sided self feed quite well. So it takes up space in addition to our Canon laser with the crappier scanner whose flatbed lid is now refusing to open properly.

I really hate printers for the most part. :)

Show threadtheHastyOne6d ago
@halfpress printers are the worst...and its by design. I keep a small thermal printer and a stack of thermal sheets around if I need to print something. But i can usually wait until i make it to the office. (Once a month or so)