Step 1. Start Autocase and rather than opening a job, click the library tab in the tool bar in the top left of the screen.

Step 2. Then click on “Add custom Castor board”.

Step 3. You will then enter the Castor board creator environment. You will see a board ready for your customizations.

Note: the size of the board is just indicative and is not the size of the board does not have any impact on what you design. The castor board does not have a defined size. The custom castor board designer records relative castor location in relation to the edges of the castor board.

Step 4. To give you something to work off from with creating some work planes, to do this click on the tool labeled “Plane”. These work planes act as guides and allow you to accurately create points on the face of the item you are working on.

Step 5. This Tool has a number of options of how you can create your work planes, but for this tutorial we are going to focus on 3 which are:

Plane: Single left clicking a face will create a work plane directly on to said plane. Click and holding, while moving the mouse will offset the work plane from the face, you can either drag the face with the mouse or put a dimension in the box that has appeared. Once happy with the work plane's location then click the Green tick to confirm the location or the Red cross to cancel the operation.

Offset from plane: Click on the face you want the work plane to be offset from, this will offset the work plane from the face selected, you can either drag the face with the mouse or put a dimension in the box that has appeared. Once happy with the work plane's location then click the Green tick to confirm the location or the Red cross to cancel the operation.

Midplane between two planes: Click the first plane and then the adjacent plane and a third plane will appear in the middle between the 2 selected planes.

By using these work planes tools we will be able to create spots where we can install “Points”, these “points” fix the spots where we want to place the castors to the board.

Step 6. Let's start by selecting the top & bottom faces with the “midplane between two planes” tool so a plane is created across the centre of the board. Then do the same by selecting the “midplane between two planes” tool and selecting the left and right faces so you end up with a cross on the board.

Step 7. Then select the “offset from plane” tool and select the top face. Offset the work plane from the top face by -100mm, and click the green tick to confirm the offset.

Step 8. Then do the same for the left, right and bottom faces.

Step 9. Select the point tool from the tool bar, The point tool works by creating a point where 3 work planes or faces intersect. Select any 3 faces that are intersecting with each other, and repeat this action until all the spots where the work planes intersect have a point attached to them.

Step 10. Now you have your points to work from, we are now going to place the castor location to the board. Select the “Add Castor” tool and then select the point where you would like the castor to be located.

Step 11. Once you select the point, autocase will then ask you to orientate the castor, do this by selecting the top edge of the board and then the left edge and you will see blue, green and orange arrows appear, this shows the orientation of how the the castor will attach to the board. With the “place castor” tool you also have the option to reverse the axis of how the castor will sit on the board by clicking the “Reverse X” & “Reverse Y”, click on them and you will see how the blue, green and orange arrows will now flip.

Step 12. Click the green tick to confirm the operation or click the red cross to cancel.

Step 13. Repeat this action until you have populated the board with castors, however leave the point that is in the centre of the board as we will need to use this shortly for something else.

Note: Castors are not actually shown in the “add castor” tool, only their indicative location and orientation.

Step 14. Once you have populated the board with Castor positions, we need to give the board a placement location. This links the board when you place it on the case and gives the board its location relative to the case. Select the “Add Placement” tool and place it the same way you placed the castor in the previous step.

Step 15. Click the green tick to confirm the operation or click the red cross to cancel.

Step 16. You can now add a round or a chamfer to your board, to add a round or a chamfer, click on either the “add round” or “add chamfer” tool in the tool bar.

Step 17. Select the edges you would like to round or chamfer and then insert the size of the round or chamfer into the measurement box.

Step 18. Click the green tick to confirm the operation or click the red cross to cancel.

Step 19. You have completed your custom castor board, now you need to add it to your library.

Step 20. Click on the tool labelled “Add to library”.

Note: You cannot add things to the standard library as it is locked, however you can make your own library for all your custom hardware.

Step 21. Start off by selecting which library you would like to save your part to.

Step 22. Fill in the boxes with information regarding you part, these consist of:

SKU: The internal SKU name or number for your company's database.

Name: The name or number that you will use to identify the part.

Labour timing: The time it takes to fully produce 1sq metre of your part.

Supplier: The name of the supplier of your hardware that you have recreated in Autocase however you can put your own name if it is an in house produced product.

Material Library: This is the library that autocase will pull the material you want your part to be made from, Autocase has a fair few stock ones in the standard library however you can add you own via a custom library.

Material: Select the material that you would like to use for your part.

Description: A brief explanation of what your part is, does or any other key information.

Unit: For use on quotations, does your part come as a part or sq meters?

Price: What is the price of your part?

Once you have filled in the boxes, click create and your custom castor board is now added to your library.