Saturday, 14 November 2026

Can Claude recreate the Glow enclosure in PhysCAD?

PhysCAD already has an MCP connector that can be enabled so that you can use an agent to drive CAD designs. I've just used Claude Code to create the Glow enclosure in Fusion. Can I get Claude Code to repeat the task using PhysCAD?

It's simple enough - in PhysCAD, go into Preferences > AI (MCP) >  turn on MCP Server:

Then add the following to the desktop config json file to enable Claude. Note, you have to have note.js installed:


And in Claude, set "Always allow..." use of tools in physcad, unless you want to be driven crazy by endless requests for permissions:


Then off you go. I gave it the HA_Glow_Enclosure.py file from the last session (with Fusion) and let it loose. After a bit of fucking about, getting Claude and PhysCAD up and running together (I've only used PhysCAD for a few minutes to date), we were cooking.

I downloaded the 3D CAD models for the ESP32-C3 Super Mini, the photo detector circuit and the 3 colour LED and was able to drink tea and eat a snack while it got busy.


The ESP32 model was missing its pins, so I got it to add them. Also, got the LED a nice blue colour and the enclosure a black finish, to match the PETG filament I'm using.

The STP file was missing its vital colour appearances, so I got those added.


Lid on:


The ESP PCB model was black, like the actual example I have, so it was almost lost against the black enclosure. I got that changed to blue so it's a bit more visible. And the LED is visible here, although it's not possible to create an actual light source there from what I can tell.

This is with the lid at something like 20% opacity:


It seems PhysCAD can't do proper ray trace rendering (yet) and doesn't respect opacity, so any render will come out black and totally opaque. But this view with translucent cover isn't bad:


Looks almost identical to the Fusion output but let's print one out and see for ourselves....


Well that's pretty convincing. The PhysCAD parts are the middle ones and the Fusion parts are the outer ones. I had to mark the PhysCAD ones so I could tell them apart. Interesting!

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Can Claude recreate the Glow enclosure in PhysCAD?

PhysCAD already has an MCP connector that can be enabled so that you can use an agent to drive CAD designs. I've just used Claude Code t...