Extrude and shell
Enclosures, housings, and boxes all start the same way: extrude a solid, then hollow it out. This walkthrough covers the shell operation and how to control wall thickness.
Before you start
- Comfortable creating and extruding a sketch
- 1
Build the solid block
Sketch a rectangle and extrude it into a solid block sized like the outer envelope of your enclosure — say 80 x 50 x 30 mm.
- 2
Choose the open face
Select the top face of the block. This is the face that will be removed when you shell, leaving an open-topped box.
- 3
Shell to a wall thickness
Run the shell operation and set a wall thickness of 2 mm. HelioCad hollows the block, keeping a uniform 2 mm wall and removing the selected face.
Tip: Selecting more than one face before shelling removes all of them — useful for open-ended housings.
- 4
Add a feature
Sketch on a side wall and cut a slot or a cable pass-through. Because the wall is uniform, the cut behaves predictably.
- 5
Adjust and confirm
Change the shell thickness in the timeline to see the walls update, then settle on your final value.
What you built
A thin-walled enclosure with a controlled wall thickness and a cut-out — the starting point for most housings.
Follow along in HelioCad
Open a workspace and build it as you read. It runs in your browser — no install required.
Start free trial