topic Re: Help with moving a part in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Help with moving a part

chrisingham05 — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 15:19:22 GMT

Hello,

I'm struggling a little to manage and understand origins in my project, I have many componets and so far I've used the same origin point for everything, is this right? It now seems that I have two origins in the project a small distance from one another and I cant figure out what part has the weird offset origin. Is there an easy way to find this? Am I right to be using the same origin point for all components within a project?

Thanks

Chris

Re: Help with moving a part

jeff_strater — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 16:25:17 GMT

modeling all components with the same origin is definitely a valid workflow, so I see nothing wrong with that. It is harder to stick to if you use external components (although edit-in-place can help with that).

To find the component, just select one of the origin planes that is out of position. Look in the browser, and you can tell which component that origin belongs to.

To move it back, there are two things you can do:

you can move it back, using Move, set to Components, and use point-to-point move - this will require you to Capture Position, though, to make it permanent
Find what operation moved this component in the first place. Look for a Capture Position feature in your timeline, and try deleting it

Also, quick hint. If you think that you inadvertently dragged that component out of position, try disabling Component Drag in the selection menu:

just remember to turn it back on if you ever DO want to drag components

Re: Help with moving a part

chrisingham05 — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 16:55:58 GMT

Thanks, that helped find the part that was wrong!

The reason it was an issue is for some reason I am struggling to move a component where I need. The project is made up of two key parts, one is aligned correctly with the origin, however the other part is 0.439mm of the origin and I want to move that component to be in line with the other part. Currently all the origins are now aligned, when I select the component, then click move 0.439mm, then ok and capture position, it is still 0.439mm off from the origin of the original part as if it hasnt moved at all. I'm a bit confused whats going wrong as it's always worked fine in the past.

If it makes any difference, I have quite a few derives in my project for shafts, pulleys etc.

Re: Help with moving a part

jeff_strater — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 16:59:46 GMT

As far as I know, Derives should not make a difference. Weird that the Move doesn't seem to work. Are there sub-assemblies involved? Sometimes being aware of the origins of the sub-assembly vs lower-level components can help. If you can share the design here, we can take a look...

Re: Help with moving a part

TrippyLighting — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 17:02:25 GMT

Please share your model.

Just the way you've asked the question has me question weather there are other issues that also need to be addressed. Better to do that now before you go too far down the rabbit hole 😉

Re: Help with moving a part

chrisingham05 — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 21:17:51 GMT

Thanks, Here's the file.

In short the part I'm trying to move is the Joint Shaft component and sub components, if you look at Sketch 2 under Barrel Body > Inner Barrel Print > Sketches you will see that the Joint Shaft is not aligned to the green vertical line, it is offset by 0.439mm. I'm trying to shift it over so it is in line with the green origin line but whenever I select Joint Shaft and try to move it over it doesnt seem to save the new location.

Re: Help with moving a part

jeff_strater — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 23:48:12 GMT

a couple of things are going on, here, I think.

understanding the difference between Body and Component, and how they handle Move
understanding that sketch origin (the red and green lines when editing a sketch) is not necessarily the same as component origin. Often, they are related, but not always
understanding the timeline, and that, when editing a sketch, Fusion "rolls back" to the point in time when that sketch was created. So, putting a Move (whether component or body) into the timeline after the sketch will not affect the position of components when editing that sketch (because those moves or Captures) have been rolled back.

There is definitely a misalignment in components in your design, at the state it was shared. The Joint Shaft subassembly is off by a bit, compared to other components (particular the global origin, and the Shaft origin)

However, that misalignment was created in the last 4 features in the timeline:

if I move the timeline marker before those 4 features, the misalignment goes away, and everything aligns nicely:

I suspect that those 3 captures and the 1 Move Body was trying to realign things, and actually made things worse.

In general, there are not usually a lot of good reasons to have Moves or Capture Position features in your timeline. There are some, particular position-based modeling, but sometimes people will try to use Move as a substitute for create component joints to connect components, and that can lead to misalignment problems. Don't want to get too preachy about it - you are free to construct your models however you want, so that is more a recommendation than anything.

And, the point above about rollback during sketch edit is important. If you want to change the position of something that is referenced in a sketch, you will need to roll back before that sketch and insert a Move or Capture before the sketch to have it appear correctly when the sketch is edited.

Hope that provided some useful information, at least, even if it did not solve all your problems.

Re: Help with moving a part

chrisingham05 — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 12:55:20 GMT

Thank you! Yes of course If I go back and edit the sketch to see the grid any moves after that are rolled back! I forgot about that, which explains why my movements werent doing what I wanted in the sketch. Good to know I can move the 'move' in the timeline to before the sketch to see its effect in the sketch.

I'm planning to join all the components but my plan is to do that once each part is complete, as most items will be fixed with a few that can rotate. Maybe I should start that now 🙂

Thanks again!

Re: Help with moving a part

chrisingham05 — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 13:05:48 GMT

In terms of moving the shaft so it is aligned with everything else, I've fixed the origin issue so they all have the same origin, but if I select the Joint Shaft Component and it's sub components, and shift them over it also shifts their origin. Is there a way to move the component without moving the origin?

Re: Help with moving a part

jeff_strater — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 17:14:26 GMT

@chrisingham05 wrote:

In terms of moving the shaft so it is aligned with everything else, I've fixed the origin issue so they all have the same origin, but if I select the Joint Shaft Component and it's sub components, and shift them over it also shifts their origin. Is there a way to move the component without moving the origin?

Yes, this is what moving components does - it moves the entire component (which includes its origin). Is the problem that the body of the shaft is not in the correct location within the component? If so, there are two ways to go about this:

go back in the timeline to where this body was created, and put it in the correct place. That may be adjusting the sketch from which this body is made, or other changes
if that is too hard, or causes downstream failures, you can use the Move feature, set to type "Bodies". This will move the body within the component (so will not move the component origin). Again, though, think about where you want this move to exist in the timeline, remembering that editing features/joints/sketches will roll out this Move

Re: Help with moving a part

chrisingham05 — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 12:35:09 GMT

Ok that makes sense, I wanted to keep the same origin for all components but I think its easier to just move the part and have the origins mis aligned