AutoCAD Drawing Exercise 4 – Trim, Offset, Array

In this post from our AutoCAD Training section, we’re sharing an example exercise using the CIRCLE, OFFSET, TRIM, FILLET, and ARRAY commands, which can be useful in your practice for learning AutoCAD and building your skills.

Experienced AutoCAD users, looking at the sample part above, will have noticed that it consists of 6 identical parts arranged in a circular pattern, and that using the ARRAY command would be suitable for drawing this part. Since the interior angles of the circular region add up to 360°, we can think of the part as made up of 60° segments.

We start by drawing circles of Ø20, Ø30, Ø40, Ø100, and Ø110 using the CIRCLE command. Then we draw a line outward from the center at a 60° angle. (by typing <60 while the LINE command is active)

Note: Having the CENTER and MIDPOINT options active in the OBJECT SNAP SETTINGS section will be enough for this drawing. (picture above)

Next, we offset this line 2.5 mm to both sides using the OFFSET command, creating a 5 mm wall thickness. Then we draw another line at a 120° angle. (by typing <120 on the keyboard while the LINE command is active)

Again with the help of the OFFSET command, we offset this line 2.5 mm to both sides. If we delete the line remaining in the middle that we drew first, a 5 mm thickness will result. The lines don’t need to be colored, of course, but we drew them in different colors to make things easier to follow.

The outline of the section we’ll multiply with ARRAY has now taken shape.

In the next step, we create the fillets using the FILLET command. The bottom fillets are R3, the top fillets are R6

In the next stage, we clean up the extra lines using the TRIM command. If we group the 8 differently colored parts, from this point on they’ll behave as a single shape drawn as one continuous line.

To group them, we select all the lines, right-click with the mouse, and choose GROUP from the menu.

Next, we’ll multiply the shape we’ve turned into a single object using the ARRAY command. In the ARRAY command, we’ll choose the POLAR option for circular multiplication.

The ARRAY command will ask us for an origin point for circular multiplication. We select the center of the circle.

The moment we select the center point, the ARRAY command will multiply the shape by whatever number it has stored in memory. By default, this is 6. We can change this from the Array command’s menu options. As it happens, we wanted to create 6 anyway. And with that, our drawing is nearly complete. All that’s left now is dimensioning.

Video Tutorial

You can watch everything we described above in the video. Finishing the drawing from scratch took 5.5 minutes at a normal pace. We hope it’s useful in your own practice.