A little help on designing in Solidworks

[D-man]

Hey guys can any of you tell me how you go about and where to start when you design your project?

Do you just source the parts on the net and find out timentions etc that way?

[blackburn mark]

haha!! BIG juggling act... china taiwan usa hong kong china germany china.... china....

i made absolutely sure of the backbone (ballscrews frame linear slides) the rest is more open to improvising

i really dont have the tools to iron out any mistakes on the big stuff so i spent plenty of time on a calculator and drawing...
it might seem simple but i find it p*ss easy to make a mistake

having the ballscrews machined by the supplier scaired me rigid... i had no idea how much of the screw would show outside the housings etc, as it turned out there was plenty of room for error because of the way they fit


dont know if any of this will help but its my take on things so far

[m_c]

All my designs start in the sketch book.

More basic ones, and ones that don't rely on critical measurements go straight to being built (such as the log splitters/hydraulic systems I've built).
More complicated ones, will then be drawn in Solidworks, to ensure everything will fit together, and so I end up with detailed drawings to work from.

As for parts, it all depends on the part, but most dimensions either come from existing machines/parts, or from the internet.

[Lee Roberts]

From the top down, however with my current machine i started with the Z axis linear rails, then moving onto the z axis ballnut mount. This was due to me using TBR16 for the z axis and needing a mount that would fit in the gap :lol:.