Placing a joint origin problem

[burnandreturn]

I hate the joints in Fusion360!  I have said it before and I will say it again.  It is ok for very simple constraints but for anything not as built it really sucks.

Things don't work as they do in the videos.

Take two components.   One a 60x60x500mm square tube.  The next a 30x30x250mm square tube.   I want to join the 30x30 tube to the 60x60 tube perpendicularly.  But I want to locate the 30x30 tube 250mm from one end of the 60x60 tube on the centerline.  So I wanted to place a joint origin on the 60x60 where I needed to make my joint. 

I can not place a joint origin on the face of the 60x60 component.

[burnandreturn]

It seems if I build a sub-assembly from linked parts I have to go back to the original part and open it and place my joint origin.  I can not place it in the sub-assembly created from individual designs that are inserted into my current design.  I have to go back to the original.   That is not good.

If someone would explain what I am doing wrong that would be great.

[TrippyLighting]

I would currently only wor with linked components if it is absolutely necessary.

If this is a new design using components that are not yet fully finalized in their design and may undergo frequent revision I woud definoitely not use linked components.

Finalize the design of the component in one Fusion 360 file and then export (save-as) that component to it's own file.

Make sure you religously activte components before editing/ading stuff.

I would be great if you could post a screencast of the behaviour, because you should be able to place a joint origin into the subassembly and not in one of the components. That joint origin as you describe it is spoecfic to that assembly and having to put it into one of the component  is simply wrong. If ythat's the only way to get that to work, that's a bug or at least a serious limitation with linked components.

[burnandreturn]

I will attempt to attach a screencast!

http://autode.sk/1NZSk5X

[burnandreturn]

The only way I was able to place joint origins where I wanted on any surface was to break all the links in the entire design.  Every link in every sub-assembly and the indivigual componets in each sub-assembly.   This doesn't seem right at all.

[jeff_strater]

I can explain the thinking behind the design, @burnandreturn, and how it works today.

You can think of Joint Origins as an "joint connection interface" to a component.  Basically a "put joint here" marker.  When you move a component, you want the joint origin to move with the component.  And, you almost certainly want Joint Origins to appear in every instance of that component (every instance has the same interface for joints).  As such, they are owned by the component that owns the geometry.  

Right now, Fusion does not let you make design edits to referenced components.  Just as you cannot add a fillet to a referenced component (while editing the top-level design), you cannot add a joint origin.  You have to open that design, and insert a joint origin.   This is the approach I would take if I needed a Joint Origin in a referenced component.

Now, admittedly, we could change Fusion to allow you to add a Joint Origin to the top level that references geometry in a referenced component.  I don't even think it would be that hard (famous last words...).  We just haven't done that yet.  Joint Origin is seen as kind of an advanced workflow, and most designs can get by without this capability.  So, it just hasn't risen to the top of the priority heap yet.  As you know, we have lots of requests for functionality.  Not to dismiss this one, but I believe that you may be the first one to request it.  I did not find it in a quick Idea Station search, and I can't find a mention of this in the forum.

Also, coming at some time (no promises when...) we want to allow in-context editing of referenced components, which will also help here.

Jeff Strater (Fusion development)