Feature idea : Injection molded cases - shell tool

[paddle]

Hi there,
Thanks for your awesome work.

I wanted to give an idea of feature for the shell tool. I often make injection molded plastic cases with a front and a back case, which are meant to be screwed together. So the front and back case need to have complementary shape to fit one into the other.




If we could have the option to make those shapes automatically it would be a really great feature. As I think those shape are really common. And if case has a shape that is a bit special it really helps I think.


What do you think?

[chrisb]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

I'm not sure if this is fitting well in PartDesign, because of the single solid rule. Could this be a special form of Part slicing?

[paddle]

I had actually 2 different ideas in mind:
- First, the one I tried to present above, would be a single part. I mean you start designing the bottom shell for example, you apply the shell tool and you want the border to be applied. Either the "front case" style, or the "back case style". In this case you would have only 1 solid before and after.

I think what you understood is actually my second idea, but I think it's more difficult to make. In this idea you would make the shape of the total product. Then apply a "injection mold case maker" tool which would split your solid along "the most external line" to make 2 solids, and would empty both solids, one for top and one for bottom. But I think this would be more difficult to make because the command would need to determine the best split line to make 2 cases which could be injected.

What do you think?

[chrisb]

I think that freecad-heini-1 is active in the mold building field. He may comment.

ping

[freecad-heini-1]

I think that freecad-heini-1 is active in the mold building field. He may comment.

ping

It's in German language, but I guess the picture and my video are understandable without translation:
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... 35#p211135

phpBB [video]

https://forum.freecadweb.org/download/file.php?id=51370

[paddle]

It's in German language, but I guess the picture and my video are understandable without translation:

Thanks, though I was not looking for tutorial how to do this, but rather to discuss the possibility to make a function that will do it automatically.