Standard parts
Screw holes, heat-set inserts, common interfaces — standard parts you do not have to measure
What this actually means
- M3/M4 countersinks, heat-set insert pockets, self-tapping bosses: name them and get table-accurate dimensions instead of guesses.
- A structure you got right can be duplicated anywhere in the same part; and the whole project exports and imports again, so it travels to your next model.
- Bind a dimension to a parameter and every place that uses it follows — hole size, wall thickness, clearance, all in one place.
- Standard parts use table dimensions with print tolerance already allowed for — and you can still change them any time.
Common questions
- Are the standard dimensions accurate?
- They come from the standards tables (an M3 countersink is 6.0 mm at the top over a 3.4 mm hole) with print tolerance already applied. You can still override them.
- Can I import someone else's STL and edit it?
- You can import it and run booleans on it (cut, split, merge). But an STL is a mesh with no modeling history, so it will not respond to parameters the way a model built here does.
- What if the standard parts aren't enough?
- Just say the dimensions — "a 6.2 mm counterbore, 3 deep". The standard parts only save you the table lookup; they are not the only way.