Today has been another marathon CAD session.
I created the electronic compartment cover (which is subject to change depending on the final contents). I’m waiting to hear back about milling the parts before I make any more changes. I expect that there will be some finessing to do once I build up another encoder board. Although it is tempting to start pushing towards ready-built solutions like those found at Acroname or switching over to an optical mouse encoder system, it’s too late in the game to try new stuff that might not work even if it might ultimately make my life easier. I have a working system now that will serve me until the next phase of this project.
Alibre Design Xpress is powerful and pretty easy to use. One of the coolest features is the way “assemblies” work. One I sketch individual parts, there are tools for “gluing” and aligning the parts together so the form an assembly.
Unfortunately, it is also easy to get lost in the miles and miles of faces and edges. Also, it is a tool that, at least for the present. has “obsession potential” for me. I was like this with Google Sketchup, too, when I was learning it. My tendency is to become obsessed with figuring out how to do something when I run into an obstacle — and ignore time limits I might place on my work. This is something I must avoid falling into in these final weeks, when the focii are going to be the performance, the presentation, and the paper.
