Control Board Panel

In this project a 3D panel will be designed for a control panel. This project will introduce importing Canvas, using points and printing Text.

Introduction

A PCB has been developed for a microcontroller system. This project will develop a 3D printed panel for the PCB.

The PCB layout is shown. Note the software package has indicated one dimension as 59.182mm. This will be required to size the 3D model.

Create New Design

Step 1 in Fusion 360 will be to select File and from the pull-down menu New Design

In the INSERT pull-down menu select Canvas.

Load the canvas.

That is the image of the PCB. In my case the image was stored in Screenshots. This name appears in the Canvas Palette.

The Canvas Palette will require the plane of the canvas. Choose X (red) Y (green)

Once a plane is chosen the Canvas Palatte includes a number of options including its Transparency. Default value 50%.

The arrows give the offset of the canvas. Ignore and press OK.

Pressing OK will display the canvas. Change to TOP view.

Calibrate the Canvas

In the project features select Canvas and the label of the Canvas (My example Screenshot......)

Right click to obtain the Calibrate option

Selecting Calibrate will obtain the sizing option. Click on one side then the second.

Enter the desired dimension. In this example 59.182mm.

Using the Canvas

Once the canvas is sized use create rectangle to make a 2D model of the final panel that is to go across the PCB/Canvas.

Go to create sketch and create a rectangle that outlines the PCB. In SOLID mode this will be 4 steps.

(1) Select Create Sketch

(2) On canvas select the working plane. Use XY or TOP view as shown

(3) Select the rectangle option

(4) Define the two corners of the rectangle and press OK

The rectangle will snap to grid so there will be some small differences in the final product..

Create the Plate

Theses step will follow the sequence of earlier project so see Introduction to Fusion 360 for more details

Select the Extrude Key and select the rectangle just created.

In the Extrude Palette select the extrude thickness as 1mm and press OK.

Make the cut out for the DB9 connector

This follows the procedure for the original extrude described previously except the rectangle covers the DB9 connector and the extrude performs a cut.

Since the new sketch is located on top of the exsisting 3D object the cut will need to be negative.

Locating the holes in the model.

The locations to place the holes will be difficult to see so make the body invisible by expanding the Body and clicking on the eye symbol. The canvas will now be clearly visible.

The next step is to place points where the holes are to be. In the extrude pull-down select Point. Since it is unlikely that the point positions are on the grid the Snap (to grid) option should be unchecked in the Sketch palette.

Using the canvas as a guide place a point at the required locations.

Since there are two different hole sizes these operation will need to be repeated for the second set of holes.

When complete hiding the canvas and turning on the body the points will be visible in the plate(just)

Generate the Hole

Select the Hole Tool.

Dimension the holes and place a hole at the required locations. In my example 4mm holes were used for the micro switches and 5mm for the LEDs. This is a bit lager than theoretically required but it allows for tolerances and resolution of the 3D printing.

Repeating the process for the 4mm holes (ie select point and create holes) the final product becomes

Adding the Text to the Panel.

Select Create Text and select orientation. Will be XY or TOP. (as per image above.

In the dropdown menu select Text

The Text operation will require specifying the corner points of the text box. Just visible in image below

After the second corner is selected in the Text Palette key in the required text.

The size of the text and the wording should be adjusted to fit into the allocated space. In this example the text is reduced to 7mm (5mm is suggested minimum) and abbreviations used for the final destinations.

Extrude The Text

Now hit finish to exit Text mode and select extrude.

In extrude select the text and specify the height (2mm in my example).

It is probably a good idea to view the model in various orientations to confirm the text is as required. ie the 2mm starts at top of plate and not the bottom. The image shows the 3D view of the operation. Note the operation will be to join to the existing body.

Conclusion

Selecting Done will complete generating the 3D model. A STL file for slicing and printing can then be generated. See section Print the 3D model (ie Generate a STL File) in Fusion 360 Getting Started..

When printing the 3D panel I paused the printing at the start of the lettering and changed the filament to a different colour. To make this relatively easy the height of the lettering was set to 2mm rather than say 1mm

In my example 3 different panels are required. After generating the STL code for one the second can be generated by using the BACK button in the tool bar and backtracking to the start of the text operation. The new text can then be added.

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