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
Click the shell step's thickness chip in the Features lane and type new values 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.
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