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1A: Onshape Fundamentals - Section 1

Exercise 1: Making Your First Tube

In this exercise you'll be:

  1. Following along with the video to learn how we can make box tubes in onshape
  2. Playing with the tools you learned to explore how the concepts work
  3. Understanding how these parts interact in 3D Space

Warning

2823 -- This is the first of many instances of the Tube Converter featurescript being used. For the purposes of this lesson, and most lessons, where the Tube Converter is used you can simply ignore the steps that convert the boxes into tubes. In the Teams workflow tubes will be imported from MKCad (Which you should have installed earlier). How we do this, and why, is outside the scope of the lessons at this point but will be explained later.

Video Tutorial

Inside of the document you copied and navigated through previously, follow along with this video to create your box tubes and finish the exercise. The extrude tool will be introduced through this.

As you work through the exercise, notice how:

  • Changing the extruded length affects the box tube.
  • The dimensions of the sketch translate directly into the dimensions of the tube.

Warning

2823 -- A small note is that the rectangle you used the Extrude tool on is called a "Sketch". Sketches are the foundation of every part you will make going forward.

Warning

2823 -- The lesson here, and lessons moving forward, will have you making multiple parts in one "Part Studio". For now follow the lessons, but in general we will advocate and teach to only have one part in a Part Studio, with some exceptions.

Reference Images

Extrude your rectangles to create box tubes.
Completed box tube geometry.

Extrude Tool Info

Boolean Options

Every extrude has options for new, add, remove, and intersect that define how your extrude interacts with other parts in the part studio. If you extrude a tube next to another tube, you might notice that they merge together. Make sure to select the new option in your extrude menu, as sometimes Onshape will default to add.

Endpoint Options

You can define the end of the extrude depending on an arbitrary length or by using other parts as reference. Up to face is pretty commonly used alongside Blind.

Tube Converter Settings

When using the Tube Converter (as shown in the video), make sure your settings match:

Tube Converter settings example

If the Tube Converter isn't behaving as expected:

  • Only select the rectangles that are not touching, as shown in the video.
  • You can remove a selection by clicking the x next to the part in the Tube Converter menu.

If you forget the name of a tool, you can press Alt+C to search for it.

Done following along?

Mess around with the tubes a bit more, try extruding different lengths, using different extrude offsets and settings, and play to see how they relate to your final box tube.

After 5 minutes or so, move on to the next exercise.