Software to make a simple box?

I'm looking to make a simple rectangular box with 2 mm thickness walls and a lid. I've tried Sketchup and Tinkercad so far without much success. It's a very simple object so I'm sure it shouldn't be that difficult to do but I'm having trouble figuring it out. Tinkercad has boxes with thick walls and I don't see a way to change them and Sketchup is a bit overwhelming.

If someone can point me in the right direction to software and/or simple instructions to do this that would be great.

Thanks,

Justin.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2017 03:21PM by mantaray.

Probably easiest to go to thingiverse and there are customizers which will generate you a box.

[www.thingiverse.com]

---

Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

I agree on using customizers on Thingiverse. My own is here: [www.thingiverse.com].

If you want to design it directly, a good starting point is to think in terms of boolean operations. I don't know Tinkercad, but in Blender you can do something like creating a cuboid for the basic outer size of the box, then taking the boolean difference with a smaller cuboid to carve out the space in the middle.

---

See my blog at [moosteria.blogspot.com].

I would suggest looking at OpenSCAD for doing a simple box.

Quote
DjDemonD
Probably easiest to go to thingiverse and there are customizers which will generate you a box.

[www.thingiverse.com]

Thanks, it looks like that may do the trick.

Quote
animoose
I agree on using customizers on Thingiverse. My own is here: [www.thingiverse.com].

If you want to design it directly, a good starting point is to think in terms of boolean operations. I don't know Tinkercad, but in Blender you can do something like creating a cuboid for the basic outer size of the box, then taking the boolean difference with a smaller cuboid to carve out the space in the middle.

Tinkercad is like Thingiverse with an option to change the objects visually. I took your box on Thingiverse and made it bigger and got rid of the lip which should be really close to what I'm looking for, thanks.

If you want to make one in tinkercad, drop a box onto the workplane, use ruler (press R) and you can see the dimensions. Make it the size externally you want your box. Now click it and hold alt and drag a copy of it away from the original. Now change the size of the copy to 4mm less in x and y (width and length), which gives you 2mm walls and 4mm less in height, which gives you a 2mm floor of the box but also a 2mm lip at the opening on top for the lid. Now make this smaller copy a hole. Then move it back over the original, centred it and raise it 2mm off the workplane.

Now the lid is just a 2mm thick box which has the x and y dimensions of your hole you just used to hollow out the first cube.

I'd I'm fairly handy with tinkercad now but I wish I had invested my time learning a proper CAD package, which I now intend to do.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2017 05:36PM by DjDemonD.

---

Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

Quote
DjDemonD
If you want to make one in tinkercad, drop a box onto the workplane, use ruler (press R) and you can see the dimensions. Make it the size externally you want your box. Now click it and hold alt and drag a copy of it away from the original. Now change the size of the copy to 4mm less in x and y (width and length), which gives you 2mm walls and 4mm less in height, which gives you a 2mm floor of the box but also a 2mm lip at the opening on top for the lid. Now make this smaller copy a hole. Then move it back over the original, centred it and raise it 2mm off the workplane.

Now the lid is just a 2mm thick box which has the x and y dimensions of your hole you just used to hollow out the first cube.

I'd I'm fairly handy with tinkercad now but I wish I had invested my time learning a proper CAD package, which I now intend to do.

Thanks, that seems like a clever way to do it.

OnShape is hard to beat for a free service. The only concern is if they ever go bust and all your designs disappear with their servers. Fingers crossed they continue to prosper...

If at first you dont succeed, throw the app in the bin, and try another one
(Currently what I'm thinking of doing as I been having a problem for 48hrs, hours of tuts cant solve my grasp of Clarisse)
Maybe you'll have more luck with another app, Try Blender, even sketchup shouldnt fall over with a cube,
onshape as james says fusion 360 if you can get it.

Quote
JamesK
OnShape is hard to beat for a free service. The only concern is if they ever go bust and all your designs disappear with their servers. Fingers crossed they continue to prosper...

They recently changed their free account, which means they weren't getting what they wanted in terms of paid accounts. They also keep trying to call my office in an attempt to get us to move from Solidworks to Onshape, but based on how many designs we have in Solidworks with the analysis that's not going to happen any time soon.

After the recent change to the free accounts, I'm skeptical it will ever get any real traction with businesses and corporations giving it a finite lifetime. They also highly believe because Solidworks has a subscription based pricing structure, they can do one too despite the current downfalls and lack of features they don't offer yet.

OpenSCAD

box.scad
----------------------------------------------------------------------
w=100;
h=50;
l=120;
t=2;

difference() {
cube([l,w,h]);
translate([t,t,t])cube([l-2*t,w-2*t,h]);
}
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

In my opinion more simple software is not exists.

Andrey

For many of us the design process simply cannot be done by typing lines of code. Your code may be simple to you, it is gibberish to me.