All you need to know about manufacture ready CAD drawings specifics

• • • If you belong to the engineering world, you might agree that drawings are king. Interestingly, with the advent of advanced tools like CAD, you no longer need to spend hours at a drafting table with your drawing scales, pencils, triangles, dividers, and more to create a drawing. Irrespective of your engineering discipline – architectural, civil, mechanical, molding, structural – drawings have a common purpose: that is to convey information on how a part, structure, or assembly is to be produced.

      3D CAD models may look great, but how to make sure that the drawings convey the shop floor precisely how a part, structure, or assembly is to be developed. In this article, I will cover specifics to streamline the creation of production-ready drawings.

      Focus on Accuracy & Clarity

      Ever wondered how many views it takes to define a whole part? The response to this perennial drawing-related debate is simple: as much as necessary.

      • To ensure easy interpretation of the drawing, at least 2 views are a must-have, but there is no maximum to it. That doesn’t mean creating superfluous views of each side of the part. It is wise to consider what’s really essential.
      • If drawing feels like getting too cluttered to be easily read and understood, take some time to eliminate unwanted or repetitive dimensions and notes. Or perhaps consider splitting the drawing over two sheets to give more room to convey all required information.
      • Assess whether a section view could be used instead of hidden lines.
      • Examine the thickness for each type of line, whether hidden, visible, center-aligned, etc.

      Templates are more valuable than you think!

      A strong foundation is a key to a well-built house. The same goes for drawings and templates. Good templates are the key to create efficient drawings quickly and accurately.

      • Appropriate title blocks are the next step after solidifying drafting techniques to get precise drawings.
      • Title blocks should consist of all the vital information that pertains to the part to be produced: title, weight, material, scale, part number, weight, scale, and more.

      Save Personalized Tables and Callouts Styles for Easy Re-Use

      Style settings include almost all the settings related to the looks, but they lack cover content.

      • If your company requires a parts list to have a title, and include a column for different items such as part number, description, quantity, cut length ad more. It is necessary to save this style of parts list as a personalized table to easily re-use it in future drawings.
      • Customize callouts to meet specific company guidelines

      Model And Communicate Design Ideas to Manufacturers

      CAD drawings are essential for both design engineers and producers to always be on the same page. It is necessary to provide. You will need to convey manufacturing information for the part to be procured through CAD drawings. Here are some to consider when modeling drawings. If you address the following questions during design, then creating drawings becomes a painless process.

      • Is the created model simple for view generation?
      • Have I patterned the part in a manner that it can be built easily?
      • Have I filled out all of the property text so that my drawing will automatically produce fields such as material, tables, part number, and title?
      • Have I created an exploded view for an assembly that is easy to follow?
      • Have I designated a material with proper characteristics for true mass calculations and hatching patterns?
      • Be careful to use industry-specific standards that pertain to the manufacturing process of the part

      Final words

      Good techniques are a key factor in creating production-ready drawings and your supporting CAD tool can either help or hinder your efforts. Consider outsourcing a 3d cad design company that adheres to these techniques to produce quality 3D Models for your project. This helps avoid confusion and eliminates costly errors.

Judith Morrison is an expert in the field of industrial engineering and writes articles related to piping, civil, equipment engineering related articles.