Designing around parts

Most designs have to fit parts that already exist: standard hardware you name, or your own parts as STEP or IGES files.

Standard parts

Name standard hardware and the agent places it at its standard's dimensions: screws, nuts and washers (ISO, DIN and ASME, metric and inch), ball, flanged and linear bearings, gears and chain sprockets, threads, O-rings and shaft seals, steel sections, tubes and T-slot extrusions. The holes, counterbores, nut traps, bearing seats and grooves that take them are sized from the same tables.

Screws, nuts and washers come without threads: they have their standard's mating dimensions, which is what fit depends on. Ask for a modeled thread when you print one.

Your own parts

Attach them as STEP or IGES files, up to 16 files and 32 MiB per message: .step, .stp, .igs or .iges. Their geometry never changes. They're imported when the turn starts, and stay in the project even if you stop it. An IGES file of surfaces is sewn into solids; for an assembly, STEP keeps the parts apart more reliably.

Placing and locking

Give positions in millimeters, and lock the placements you've settled: Put the PCB at [0, 0, 5] and the LCD at [0, 7, 14]. Lock both placements. A locked part keeps its place until you ask to unlock it.

Attach a part once and ask for copies: Use the switch twice, at [-12, -12, 13] and [12, -12, 13]. Each copy has its own name, position, lock and references.

Reserving space

To keep a plug's path, a button's travel or a screwdriver's reach clear, model that space as a solid, attach it, and ask the agent to keep it clear.

A complete request

Build a base and a lid around the locked layout. Base: 84 × 60 mm, 18 mm tall, 2 mm walls, with four PCB standoffs under the board's mounting holes. Lid: 2 mm thick, with a display opening 0.5 mm larger than the display on each side and 6.8 mm holes over both switches.