- 2 days ago
CAD and SendCutSend for Beginners Full Tutorial with OnShape's Free Plan
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00:00Hey, welcome to the shop. I'm so excited about this one. It's going to be a game changer for a
00:04lot of you out there who have wanted to make more complicated things without having every expensive
00:10piece of equipment. We're going to use online CAD software to design this right here, this jack
00:17stand rack, and I'll walk you through step by step, every step of the way, how to do it from the
00:23beginning, no experience necessary. It doesn't cost you a dime. You don't have to download anything.
00:27That's great. We're going to then upload that design to send, cut, send, and have the parts
00:34precision laser cut bent on their CNC press brake and dimpled and all so that you can just weld them
00:41together. I wish this existed when I first started out, but I'm sure glad to be able to use it now.
00:46And I'm going to show you how to do the same. We're going to go ahead and start with the CAD
00:49modeling here. I'm using a software called Onshape. It's completely web-based. You don't have to
00:54download anything. I think it's one of the most intuitive and easiest to use for beginners.
01:00The way to sign up for it, if you don't have it already, you can just Google Onshape free,
01:05or I'll put a link in the description. And then under plans, they have a free plan right here.
01:11It's just for personally use, non-commercial, and your documents are publicly shared. So if you're
01:16doing anything super proprietary, that's not going to be a good fit. But other than that,
01:20it's a really powerful tool. So I already have an account. So I'll log in here and click on create
01:27document, and then I'll give it a name. So we'll call it Jackstand. Is Jackstand one word or two?
01:36I don't know. It's two today. And here we go. So here, there's a lot to look at when you first log
01:42in to the CAD software. Along the top, there are a bunch of different commands, and the pictures are
01:48kind of self-explanatory. Don't let it bog you down. You really only need a couple of these,
01:52and I'll show you which ones. They'll be the same ones you'll use a lot. And then you can learn the
01:56others as you need them. And then here, you'll see three planes. There's a front plane, a right plane,
02:03and a top plane. So anything we're going to do, we're going to start with a sketch on one of the
02:07planes. Now, in order to move your model around, you use the mouse. So the right click button on your
02:14mouse, if it's set up the same as mine, will allow you to rotate your model, right? So you can change
02:21the direction you're looking at it by holding that down and moving the mouse. The middle mouse button
02:26will let you pan or just slide it side to side like this. So using an actual mouse is really
02:34beneficial. If you have a laptop with a trackpad, it's pretty cumbersome from my experience. Now,
02:39there are other tools you can get to help increase your productivity. In fact, just this week, I had
02:44a company send out this CAD mouse. It has special buttons on it that lets you zoom in and out. It's
02:51made just for CAD by 3D Connection and also their space mouse here. Now, this right here is a little
02:57joystick that lets you move your model around and rotate and slide it. And so it just lets you be a
03:04little bit more productive. I use these in my engineering jobs. I thought they were prohibitively
03:11expensive, but when I looked at it and they sent one out, I'm like, oh, that's probably a worthwhile
03:16thing if you're getting pretty into CAD. Is it necessary? I think a physical mouse is absolutely
03:22worthwhile for a beginner. If you're going to be doing a lot of it, I think it's a big productivity
03:27gain. Now, the concept today is a jack stand rack. And I wanted to be able to hold two of these
03:33three-ton jack stands, but I want a little bit of margin in case I get different models in the
03:38future so they'll still fit. So I want something that can mount to the wall. So I need enough width
03:44in the tray right here to fit these with a little margin. One side to come up high, then taper down
03:51to the tray and put in some holes. So that is the cross section I'm going to draw for my first sketch,
03:58right? It'll come up over and down at an angle, and that'll be the basic shape. And I'm going to
04:04click on sketch and then select the plane. Now that's going to let me sketch in 2D. Now this is
04:10the second video in a series. In the first one, I showed how all you need to do is use the sketcher
04:15here to create some models that you can have cut out by send, cut, send. I'll link that in the
04:19description. If you want a simpler, even more basic place to start. Okay. I'm going to draw the
04:23basic profile just using the line tool. So at the top, it looks like a line and I click on it.
04:30Then I can click on the center to start my line. And then I'm going to go straight up with it like
04:37this. And I'll go over to the side like that, down at an angle, straight down to make the tray. And if I
04:46hover over that first origin point, it'll align it, click and click at the origin. That's going to be
04:53my basic shape. Now everything needs to be constrained or given a dimension. So I'll click
04:59on the dimension tool here. And I've already figured out the size that I want this. So I'll
05:04go right here and I'll make it eight inches tall. I'm also going to make it eight inches deep, which
05:11is a little deeper than the jack stands, but I want a little wiggle room in case I get a different
05:15brand or something in the future. Now I want the tray part of it to be two inches deep. And then this
05:24portion right here, I want to be one and a half inches. Now I don't want this sharp corner at the
05:36top, but I'm fine with it down here at the bottom. I want to have something that rolls off here where
05:42it's open. So I'm going to go up here to the sketch fillet. And now when it's on the outside,
05:47it's technically around, but use fillet command no matter what. So I'll click right there. And then
05:54I can put in my radius. I'll put that as one inch. And that is it. So this is the shape that will sit
06:06inside the sheet metal, almost like a mold. So click check here and it's done. Now I need to give
06:14some length to this. Okay. So I'll line it here. And then I'm going to click on this button right
06:21here, which is called extrude. There are two basic things you can do in CAD with a sketch. You can
06:26extrude it to stretch it out long, almost like those play dough things where you're pushing the play
06:31out through an extruder, or you can revolve it. And that will rotate it around an axis to make a
06:37round part here. I'll just show you real quick. So if I revolve this part around this axis, see,
06:45I can make basically a cone shape. I don't want to do that. I want to stretch it out. So I'm going to
06:53use extrude instead. And even though there are all these commands, a lot of what you're going to do,
06:58most of it can be done with extrudes revolves. I'll select my face right there. And then my
07:04length, I'm going to make this 15 inches long and click enter. And I'll click the check mark.
07:12Okay. So this is the basic shape that's going to sit inside my sheet metal part. So I'm going to go
07:18over here to sheet metal model and I'll click on it right there. Now these dialogue boxes will come up
07:25and you just need to work down through it. So I'm going to start with the part to convert.
07:31And so I selected the part now faces to exclude. If you notice it, put sheet metal around the whole
07:40outside of this part. I don't want that. So I'm going to click on these faces right here to exclude
07:48them. Okay. So here are my parts. Now this is looking pretty good. Um, the only thing about it
07:57is I'd have to weld all of these corners and I want to bend some of them. I'm going to use the sides with
08:03the back and the front with the bottom, and that's going to minimize the amount of welding that I'll need
08:08to do. So right here, I can click on edges to bend and click on this front edge right there.
08:15And then I'll also click on these back corners right here. And now you can see it's two pieces
08:26with the bends there and the front right there. Now there are some parameters to this that you'll
08:33need to set. So you can set your thickness of your sheet metal. I have it set to an eighth of an inch,
08:39which is correct that, uh, I'm going to use. You need to have the correct bend radius and the correct
08:46K factor. Now the send and cut send site actually has one of the best, uh, set of resources for
08:52designing sheet metal parts that you can possibly find. And it shows specific details for the process.
08:58So if you go to resources and, uh, then you can go here to bending and click on the material.
09:07And so then here in the material,
09:10it actually shows for a given thickness, all of the details that you need to know.
09:16So I can scroll down here and it shows the effective bend radius at 90 degrees of one eighth of an inch.
09:23And so I'll make sure that that's correct here. And it is. And the other number that I need to know
09:31is the K factor right here. We won't get into what that is, but, uh, it needs to be correct or at least
09:38pretty close for it to work. And it has it at 0.44. And so I'll go over here and make sure that it's
09:45at 0.44. Then click the check mark and it's finished. That is all there is to, um, modeling up this part
09:54right here. Now I want to put some dimples in the side because I think that would look really cool.
10:01So I am going to use an extrude once again, so I can click and make another sketch. I'll click on the
10:07side right here and then align it. And I'm just going to do this a simple way where I'll create a
10:16circle. So I click on the circle tool and click and drag right there. Now, whenever you're putting in a
10:23hole, you need to have, uh, both size and position. So I'll click on the dimension and my size is going
10:29to be one and a half inches. That's the size that I want it to be. And then on the SendCutSend site,
10:34there are guidelines for how much spacing you need around the dimples. Um, so you can refer to those too,
10:40if you're doing that, but I am going to go from the back here forward by one and a half inches.
10:50And then from the base up, now I've set my size and position for one of these, but I want to have
10:58three and I want to create equal spacing. So I could dimension some more circles in here and that
11:05would be fine, but I'm going to use what's called a pattern or an array. So I'll click on this right
11:11here. It's got these four, uh, squares together to make a linear pattern and I'll select this right
11:16here. Then I can select that. I want two in this direction,
11:24two in this direction, and then put in the spacing that I want between them. I'm going to have three
11:32inches apart in both directions. Then I can just delete the one that I don't want. And there you go.
11:40I have my three holes. Now I can extrude and I can just select instead of adding material. See,
11:50it's defaulting to remove material here. And I can, instead of blind, just put through all
11:59and it'll go through both sides. There we go. Now I just need to create my pattern. Now to create the
12:05pattern down at the bottom left is a plus icon and I will click on create drawing. Now I need a blank
12:15drawing and I just have a blank drawing template here that I use and I will click. Okay. Uh, there
12:23now you can find, uh, just any blank sheet will work. Now over here, um, you can put in drawing views.
12:31So this is what you'd use if you wanted to create like blueprints that you'd follow if you were to build it
12:35yourself or give it to a shop. But I am going to use the flat patterns, uh, icon. And so I can click
12:43flat pattern of part one. And then I'm going to change my scale to one for one to one. That way,
12:52it'll be the right size. Now notice this is larger than the sheet. That doesn't really matter. So I'll
12:59click right there and drop it in place. Now here's the pattern with bend lines. And this is what's
13:05going to get uploaded to send, cut, send. So I'll highlight it and I want to get rid of these bend
13:11notes and the center points. So I'll just right click on it, show hide, and then go hide bend notes.
13:20Then click and right click again and go to hide auto center marks. Just like that. Okay. So this
13:30file is done and ready to upload to send, cut, send. Now I'm going to go over here on the left. See,
13:37there's the stack of sheets. I can click on that and then I can go right here with this plus and click
13:46insert sheet. Now, once again, I just need to insert the flat pattern view. So up here at the top,
13:53there's this insert view icon that I'm hovered over. I'll click on that.
14:00Click on insert. And then once again, I'm going to flat patterns, flat pattern of part two and make
14:08sure my scale is one to one. Otherwise you're going to get a miniature version of whatever you designed.
14:13So that's what I'm going for. And it's spilling over off the sheet again. That's fine. Now once
14:21again, I'll right click on it, show hide, and hide the bend notes. Now I can export the files that I need
14:28to upload to send, cut, send to order these parts. So I'll double click here on layout one,
14:34and that'll show this part. I can right click where it says drawing one at the bottom. And there's an
14:40export button. Now I'll go ahead and name that jack stand rack back. And then the format is DXF. That's
14:54good. The defaults are usually just fine there and click on export. Now I'll double click on layout two
15:01over to the left and it'll have the bottom. I can right click on drawing one, click export.
15:09And then up here, I'll call that jack stand rack two. Now over in send, cut, send, I can go ahead
15:17and click to upload the files. Okay. So it'll ask you to confirm the drawing units. So you can look
15:23right here at the size that it's showing in inches. In this case, eight inches tall, 31 wide. That seems
15:29right. I'll click confirm. Then I can select my material. We're going to use aluminum 5052,
15:38one eighth of an inch. And I'm going to make three of these. Okay. So then click next. And here's where
15:47you can add in your other operations. So bending, I am going to put 90 degrees in on both sides. Done.
16:00Dimple forming. And we'll do inch and a half diameter dimples. If you notice on the preview,
16:08the dimples are inverted the wrong direction right here. And so I can click this arrow right there
16:14and reverse it. So you can see they're going inward. That's how I want it. Click done. And next,
16:24I'm not going to use any finishing operations. So I can add that to the cart. Next, I'll add the
16:29jack stand rack bottom. Once again, metals will go aluminum 5052, one eighth inch. And then I'll add
16:38three to the cart. Notice it's a huge discount when you go from one to two to three,
16:44and especially when you get up to like 10 or 50 parts, it drops the price a lot. And the great
16:49thing is you can go in and you can play with this and see how much less would it be if I made it
16:54thinner, right? All right. Once again, I'm going to add three. Click next. Then I'll go to bending
17:03and it has my bend line in there. So I'll do 90 degrees. Click done.
17:08Next and add it to the cart. Then you can check out just as easy as an Amazon cart. And there's a
17:17discount code in the description that'll save you 15%. It's not an affiliate link or anything,
17:23but just something awesome they do for friends of the channel. Now, this isn't my biggest send,
17:27cut, send order, but it is the thickest package with these bends. And I'm really interested to see
17:32how they packaged everything in here. I didn't skimp on the candy. Got the stickers. It's a good day.
17:54All right. Well, everything's packed. Nice. Showed up in great condition.
17:58Let's open these up and see how they fit together. So I'm going to go ahead and weld this up with no
18:04fixturing at all. I'm just holding these two parts in place while I tack it around there.
18:08And once I get them tacked together, we'll take a pretty close look at how the joints fit,
18:12but you can see already how well it fits together. And if you don't use CAD or things like this,
18:18it's very difficult to get a fit like that. And you can imagine how you can bake all sorts of things
18:22using the exact same methodology we did, whether it's tanks or, uh, trays or different automotive
18:29parts or brackets, all sorts of stuff with just these basic skills that we went over in this video.
18:34So you can come back and go through the whole tutorial and design them yourself. But look at
18:39that fit. I mean, that joint is just going to be awesome to weld and I'll work my way all the way
18:45around. Now, when I weld this notice, I'm working from the front to the back on this side, all the
18:52way back. And then I work all the way across the back. And then from the other side, I work from the
18:58front to the back again. That way, when you're looking at it from the front, you can see, um,
19:04the, the same direction throughout. They turned out great. Really happy with them.
19:08All right. Well, I'm super pumped about how these turned out. They're going to look great hanging on the
19:12wall with the jack stands. I won't have to trip over them anymore. And more than anything,
19:17I hope that you've learned some skills or at least gained the confidence to get in there and try
19:21modeling up some of your own parts and maybe using some of these services to up your fabrication game.
19:27Be sure to check out the description. I always have a bunch of links there. Um, there is a 15%
19:32off discount to send, cut, send. So that'll save you quite a bit if you decide to order some parts
19:38there. Also, there is a link to my online welding and fabrication courses. So those can fast track
19:45your, uh, learning to weld, um, by a ton for just 39 bucks. I walk you step-by-step through
19:52the most important things. So you don't get distracted with too much information
19:56and it's real hands-on. Be sure to check those out if that's something you're interested in
20:00and we'll see you next time.
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