The enclosure design - Fusion 360.

Parametric enclosure modeling using fusion 360

What is a parametric design and how is it better than just designing a normal box?

Well a using some simple behind the scene settings and a feature in many design tools we can do some big changes and the rest changes along with any other changes we make, this means we can change the width of of the enclosure and all the panels will change along also! A far easier and smarter choice choice when designing "things" that will require constant modification, imaging you are designing a super sexy new mag wheel and you need to design a wheel in every size from a 14" to a sleek 18" rim.

You have 2 basic options of going about doing this.

We could painstakingly draw out over wheel from the very beginning which could take us hours for each rim or we could create some settings that will let us change the overall dimensions for every single part at a click of a button.

This means regardless of what we change the whole drawing will conform to the new size, this is the power of parametric modeling!

Here are some basic examples to help you understand  how the relationship works using fusion 360:

We going to be designing a pipe, the internal radius will change from model to model, however the thickness of the material must stay constant.

If our first fitting is set to 50mm internal diameter, we can simply create a second "rule" to define the thickness must always be the diameter of "rule a" + 5mm

We go to the sketch dimension and set our "rules" to each component, part or series of shapes and start typing in which rule belongs to which part.

Now we have set some rules we can quickly change things, the thickness will remain constant regardless of the inner diameter as the thickness is locked in the following expression:

Pipeinner = X

Pipethickness = (X+5mm) 

Now if we need to change the diameter of the pipe internally, we move to our FX options and define the new value.

 Just like that we enter in the new value and we are done, excellent results quickly and efficiently.

Doing this for our speaker enclosure can be a little more complicated in nature, we now how multiple different parts that make up an end "product" 

The order in which we create these components parts and assembly piece's, will impact how you define the rules and the workflow.

Here is the basic parameters I'm using for this series, you could add more or less rules and is completely up to you.