How so you place a hole where you want it to be?

[Helmi74]

question is simple. using the hole feature you could simple place a hole as a feature which is great. especially I like the countersink feature though I would like to see more options there (cylindrical sink and a nut rap on the other side on top of the list).

My only problem is: how do you plce a hole on a defined point? Ok, you can use snapping to place the hole at an intersection or perpendicular to the mid point if an edge, but how about placing holes in Every corner of a rectangular plate with a given distance of for example 10mm to each edge? I know you can do sketching and patterns but that is way too complicated again and blows away the easiness of placing holes.

we already discussed that in the hangout and there's already some ideas regarding exact positioning in the idea station but I wanted to bring this back to your attention with this special example as I find that it show how good ideas like the hole feature meet really missing basics. having dynamic guides here that let me enter distances just like nearly every drawing feature in Fusion360 would solve this issue and help in many other cases.

I hope to see something like this in a ear update... 😉

my question is still valid: how do you place those holes?

[schneik-adsk]

I do it one of two ways.

The first is better for a few holes. Start the hole command and select a planar face. "Activate" the position manipulator by selecting it. It is the dot at the centerline of the hole. Now move your mouse (don;t drag the point, just move your mouse) over an edge you want to dimension to and click, move to the second edge and click. You should see two dimensions that you can edit to position the hole.

The second method is better for many holes. Create a sketch on a face and place sketch points. Dimension them as needed.

Start the hole command and don't pick a face, pick the sketch point. Create the first hole. Turn the sketch back on. It will stay on for all subsequent holes. Create holes and select each position marked by a sketch point one by one.

We have some improvements in mind but that is my basic workflow.

[Helmi74]

Hey Kevin,

thanks for pointing that out - i just didn't know that his is working. This is definitely great. Why did no one tell me about that until now? This center dot feature was totally hidden for me 😮 Also a similar feature would be a must have for sketch elements. Having to use dimensions as a separate step there makes it much harder over time and also distracts the interface after a while if you have a more complex sketch - or you have to remove them again which could break your design with the next dimensions you set but after all means again some more additional clicks.

Back to the holes an additional question:

I've just tested what you said and it worked great. i put a 5mm diameter hole in a corner of a 25x25x10mm box with 5mm distance from both edges. Now i wanted to pattern it to have one hole in each corner but it didn't work out. To be hones i didn't use pattern so much until now but i only got this error:

"Pattern failed to make tool sheet from feature facet"

I selected the hole as an object (also tried selecting it from the browser) and tried different axes for direction even the most unlikely one.

Did i make anything wrong? I guess so but i can't imagine what... Maybe it's just my bad english but i can't even understand what that error means or what may be going wrong that helps me change the way i do it to make it right.

[Anonymous]

That is great, but where is the ability to alter hole positions in the change parameters dialog? If Fusion purports to be a parametric design tool you must be able to change all types of parameters as you can easily do in other CAD packages even the free ones!

[schneik-adsk]

The hole feature has all the parameters right in the dialog.

[Anonymous]

The X and Y locations are missing whenever I create a hole and i can not find a way to alter them other than deleting the hole and recreating it with sketch lines at the desired location. Why not show coordinates of the hole on the face of the part? I am using the Mac OS version, is the PC version different? Or am I missing something, it seems obvious to me that the coordinates of a feature should be available at all times. thanks for trying to help.

[Anonymous]

Ok, when I select the two reference edges I can now see the ref dims in the change dialog and can alter them as needed, My question is now why don't they show up as undefined in the change parameters dialog to indicate that they are not selected yet?

My confusion was caused by not knowing what those parameters were used for as it was not obvious to the novice user (who has used many other CAD systems over the past 40 years or so). The change parameters dialog should show all possible parameter values for currently used features even if they are not currently defined, as only  a placeholder so the user is aware of the possibility. A selection check box could allow you to hide unused parameters if space was of concern.  Thanks again for your help!