Sheets of Metal

Unit 3 was about sheet metal, how it bends, and how to measure and draw the bends folded and unfolded. The unit started with my first paper/vellum drawing since Survey of Engineering Graphics, followed by AutoCAD work, finally into Inventor, which was the easiest. Below are several of the works of this unit from Inventor:


9-24 SLotted Flange A




9-25 Slotted Flange B




Lesson 3-6, My Choice Object Drawing, Joist Hanger




3-6 Joist Hanger



How to Draw your Depth Gauge

This last drawing was one out of a new textbook, Mechanical Drawing: Board and CAD Techniques. It was a 4-part drawing of a depth gauge, including a base, a knurled screw, a depth rod, and a handle. It was a pretty easy drawing, but I did get to learn some new things in inventor while drawing it. Below are drawings of the depth gauge:

The Weldment Unit

This first unit in Technical Manufacturing was a fun and semi-easy one. I'm two weeks into school and I know all about weldments now. I drew several weldment drawings and added weldment symbols to them, as well as the standard dimensions. This unit also took me back to AutoCAD, which I hadn't used in about a year. Some of my assignments are pictured below:

The Carburetor

This last project was to draw a carburetor. Some parts were easy, but others were challenging, like ones that had irregular shapes. The animation proposed a challenge, because it was originally cutting out a part of the movement due to the floor being too high. Each part was individually drawn, and in the end, they all fit together greatly.

The Gear Transmission

This last project was drawing a gear transmission in Inventor. The assembly consists of three gears, two lock gears, an axis, and several washers and retaining rings, for a total of thirteen parts. It was easier to animate that past projects, and the hardest part was drawing the gears, as the prongs varied in depth, and the measuring was dificult in some cases. The overall project was more time consuming than difficult. But in the end, the drawn part looks very cool and just like its real counterpart.

The Gear Transmission

The C Clamp

My latest project was a c clamp. Its size initially made it hard to dimension, as it was larger than my regular measuring tool reached. It's shape confused me for a while, but after looking at it and applying some dimensions, my Inventor replication was really close to the actual piece. The hardest part though was definitely animating it. I knew what to do, but I couldn't get inventor to move the right parts in the right way. I eventually decided to play constraints between parts to my advantage and move only one part, dragging the other parts with it.

Making Digital Plastics

In this last project, I took a plastic Wheelr High School water bottle and drew it in Inventor. The drawings I had to make with it followed the sameoutline as the Bottle Opener, but some parts presented a challenge. I couldn't remove the tip of the lid, so I had to measure around the lid base to measure it. Also, the lid and its features were new and irregular to me. The bottle, though it's the largest part, was probably the easiest.


Bottle Base




Bottle Exploded Isometric



Bottle Lid Tip



Bottle Section




Bottle Lid





Inventor Studio Bottle



Special Project #1

Since the last post, I have spent around two weeks measuring and drawing a bottle opener/cork remover in inventor. It was interesting to get every detail in, because some had to be done in a specific order in order for the part to turn out right, and then one part I spent less than two total minutes on. In the end, the parts fit together perfectly, and I animated the bottle opener to do what it does in the physical world.


Bottle Opener Base




Bottle Opener Coil Screw




Bottle Opener Pin




Bottle Opener Exploded Isometric




Bottle Opener Lifting Gear Lever




Bottle Opener Assembly Section



Bottle Opener Presentation



Inventor Studio Productions

This unit was all about using Inventor Studio to create images and animations. It was fun, especially watching my drawings move on my screen. I had to return to the tutorials for reference on moving the camera, but I got it to move precisely where I wanted it to go. It was also fun to play around with the lighting, experiment with the lighting styles, and see what different colors the lights could make.


Leveling Assembly 1



Leveling Assembly 2



Leveling Assembly 3



                                          The Leveling Assembly Animation
For this animation, I used the four color lighting style. I left three of the lights as white, but I set one of them to the color orange to add a slight tint to the assembly. I started the animation with a view of the entire assembly to show how the parts move together. For the second half, as it retracted, I set the camera to zoom in on the screw in order to show detail on how it turns to move the other parts. I then ended the animation by returning the camera to its original view. The background for this animation was set to default. This makes the background less distracting and diverse from any other animations that have a fancy background.

Presenting the Presentations

This short unit was all about creating presentation files of previous drawings, supported by a couple tutorials. The unit was short and simple, with the exception of a winding section line. For each of the previous drawings, I created 2 B-sized sheets, one for an exploded isometric view, and another for an assembly section view. The drawings are below.


Leveling Assembly Section



Leveling Assembly Exploded Isometric

Wheel Assembly Section

Wheel Assembly Exlploded Isometric