topic Re: Joint to keep two planes aligned in Fusion Support Forum

Joint to keep two planes aligned

eric202020 — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 10:39:53 GMT

I need to align the center plane of a beam with another plane (formed by 3 points in a 3D sketch in this example). A rigid joint doesn't automatically keep the planes aligned if the plane is changed.

I've seen a few similar threads, but haven't found anything like this case.

In the screen cast, I show creating the rigid point and updating the angle to make sure the plane formed by 3 points in a 3D sketch are aligned with the plane through the center of the beam. If I then move a point in the sketch, I must manually update the angle again.

Is there a way to do this automatically with a different type of joint or some other feature?

Re: Joint to keep two planes aligned

davebYYPCU — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 10:37:43 GMT

No screen cast.

Planes have no geometry so I would say not possible at this stage, because Fusion uses common points in the construction of the Joint, changing the angle of a plane not totally related to the joint has no effect.

Might help....

Re: Joint to keep two planes aligned

eric202020 — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 10:56:05 GMT

Thanks for the fast reply. I've added the screencast and made sure to click on "Insert" this time 🙂

The plane is actual a midplane of real geometry, so there should be a solution that I'm just missing.

Re: Joint to keep two planes aligned

davebYYPCU — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 11:06:13 GMT

As I said, without the movie,

the moving sketch point has nothing tied to the joint, and nothing to do with the midplane

A line in that sketch instead of the axis, and the joint disc tied to the line, will get it done.

Might help....

Re: Joint to keep two planes aligned

eric202020 — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 11:27:07 GMT

I removed the axis so it is just a line. Unfortunately, the joint disc doesn't rotate with the line as it stays true to the coordinates, so the exact same problem.

Re: Joint to keep two planes aligned

davebYYPCU — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 11:32:35 GMT

Delete the perpendicular line causing the wrong selection to be made.

You need the joint disc to align on the long line midpoint - for a fighting chance.

The line moves with the moving point, the bar has to maintain alignment.

Might help....

Re: Joint to keep two planes aligned

eric202020 — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 11:34:02 GMT

OK, adding a new joint origin on the perpendicular line and then selecting the line (where the axis was) as the X-axis of the joint origin fixed works!

I'll do a screen cast for it tomorrow.

Re: Joint to keep two planes aligned

davebYYPCU — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 11:54:09 GMT

Yep, nothing to do with either plane.

Re: Joint to keep two planes aligned

eric202020 — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 02:36:58 GMT

@davebYYPCU wrote:
Yep, nothing to do with either plane.

Other than what I'm doing is using the planes to attach a sketch to and doing the lines to attach a joint origin to just so I can place a component. Joints are very nice in typical cases (bolts, etc) compared with constraints in other CAD systems, but things like this are not very intuitive and seem hacky IMHO.