We begin sketching our design. We use the line tool to sketch half of the profile for the base part of the light bulb. We approach this by roughly making our sketch and then coming in with sketch constraints and dimensions to obtain a precise drawing.

Use the spline tool to sketch the bulb part of our model and then use the revolve tool to create a 3D model from the sketch.

How to amend spline points and curves. We set a horizontal constraint to the top spline point in order to have a smooth curve along the top surface of our light bulb.

Add and remove spline points. Add dimensions and constraints to spline points.

Use a sketch line to split our body into to parts - the upper bulb and the bottom base.

Use the coil command to create custom threads for the bottom base part of our light bulb. We do this by first creating an offset plane where we will place our coil.

We use the sweep command to create an extrusion that follows our own custom path. This allows us to continue the thread extrusions in a way that follows the existing slope of the threads. We also add fillets to our threads to give it a more realistic look.

Using the center rectangle and center circle sketching tools we create a sketch that we then extrude to create slots for our CR2032 coin cell battery and led which will be what makes this design a "working" light bulb.

We use the Press Pull tool to make the bulb part a little bigger than the base since the bulb will fit around the base. We then use the Section Analysis tool to take a closer look at the size difference.

We sketch a line across our base portion of our model and then use the Split Face command to split the face of the base. This allows us to come in with the Pipe tool and use the split line to create a pipe around our model. This pipe ring will serve as a stopper to keep our bulb from sliding down into the threaded part of the base.

We add appearances to our model to make it look more realistic. This includes adding a brass material to the base and a glass material to the bulb.

How to use Fusion 360 to 3D print our file. We cover how to export the model as an .stl file and also how to use Fusion 360 to directly open up our model into Cura, a free and powerful slicing software.

Using Cura to prepare our model for 3D printing. We cover how to arrange our part and go over the simple interface of Recommended settings to easily set the layer height or resolution, infill percentage, and if we want build plate adhesion for our model.

We send our bulb part into Cura and choose our 3D printing settings. We want to 3D print the build with zero infill and with zero bottom layers, plus we want to add a brim to allow our part to stick to the build plate. This will require us to navigate from the Recommended settings into the Custom settings section of Cura which allow for a lot more options. We briefly dive into the Custom settings options that we have in order to get a successful print.

We finally get to print our part but as with most first prints we'll have to go back and make some changes. We look at why our parts don't fit together and go back into Fusion 360 to make the necessary changes.

We modify the bulb by extruding the bottom surface a bit to provide more surface contact with the base. We then re-position the bulb into place by using the Align tool.

The holes for our LED legs were just too small so we find the sketch that they are referenced in and edit the sketch to increase the hole size. This is easily accomplished by taking advantage of the timeline in Fusion 360.

After making our changes we print our design to check if we now have that perfect fit.

Congratulations on completing this course! You should now feel a bit more confident in your Fusion 360 skills and in the entire workflow of taking a design to a 3D printed physical object. Make sure to check out my other courses.