Drawer

This is a design for a lasercut acrylic drawer section I designed for storing electronics components. I’ve been trying to learn how to do proper, constraint-based, parameter driven design in Fusion 360 lately. While I still have quite some ways to go before I can say that I’ve cracked it, this has already saved me some time on other projects.

You can find the model on

• Github
• A360

Why?

I have a bunch of those cheap and cheerful plastic drawer boxes for components in my office/lab/den at home, and while they are handy, they are not extremely space efficient. So I would like to find a better place to store my components.

Since I had recently performed an exorcism on my library I had some space there that could perhaps be transformed into something more useful that storing outdated computer books.

Of course, I could just use one of the many online finger joint box generators on the web and make, well, just boxes, but where is the fun in that? This was a good opportunity to spend some time practicing constraint based design in Fusion 360.

Parameter driven -> tool

As with any learning experience this is slow going at first, but once you learn how to make use of the constraints and parameters in Fusion 360, every drawing turns into what is essentially a tool for making many different versions of the same thing.

For instance I also have a model for designing picture frames. Just by altering the parameters I can change the width and depth of the frame, the way the proportions of the mat to the artwork etc. It even generates toolpaths for the CNC machine - though these still need some work.

In terms of learning I’m currently at the stage where I’m seeing productivity gains, but where lack of professional experience sometimes makes models blow up on me in weird ways.

One thing I’d really like in Fusion 360 is the ability to get access to the parameters of a linked component when I assemble several components in a new document. I wanted the shelf and the drawer to be separate components in separate files. And then the plan was to include both shelf and drawer and be able to drive the drawer parameters from the shelf parameters, but alas.

If you know of any way to do this, please let me know. Or perhaps I’m just going about it the wrong way. I got the idea watching Martin Molin on his Wintergatan Youtube channel: