PCB components are unvisible in Fusion 360

Anonymous · ‎04-01-2020

Hello,

Although I have added 3d pictures of all components, after pushing my PCB board to fusion 360, it is as seen in the picture in fusion 360. None of the components are visible.
I need your help on this subject, thank you.

jk.umrao · ‎04-01-2020

I am also facing same issue. In my case in some case PCB gets very small and component placed appears out of board.

If it does not work I have to think to use different PCB layout software.

yqliu · ‎04-01-2020

Hi @Anonymous ,

The reason of this issue could be something is wrong with some of the 3D models. We know a bug on our server side and is fixing. Our fix might not be complete. Can you try the following steps and see if it's possible to find which one is wrong?

1. Save the pcb file as a new one and then push to 3D PCB;

2. If you can see the 3D models now, try your original design. Otherwise you should get a warning message and tell you which models are missing. Remember the first one, and remove it from the pcb and try again.

3. If it works, then the one your removed has some issues.

4. If still no lucky, please delete some other parts from PCB (no reroute is needed), view 3D PCB and repeat until you can see the 3D models in 3D PCB.

Once we know which part has problems, we can help to fix the issue.

Thanks,

Richard

Anonymous · ‎04-03-2020

Hey @yqliu ,

Thank you for your answer.

But the problem continues.

fheineman · ‎04-03-2020

Richard,

I am having the same problem and, thanks to your suggestion, have discovered that if I remove a certain component from my custom library the problem goes away. I am happy to help in any way to solve this issue. Please let me know what information I can provide to assist.

Thanks,

Fred H

fheineman · ‎04-03-2020

Here are a couple of images to better illustrate my experience...

Top component seems to be the culprit. Notice how it is displace from the footprint, even though the library package seems to be lined up properly.

Removing that component allows the 3D packages to appear for the other components.

I will further examine the suspected device in my custom library to see if I can determine the cause.

Note that all of the components come from the same custom library.

fheineman · ‎04-03-2020

Hi Richard,

I spent many hours today running some tests and recording my results in hopes to help your team resolve this issue. Rather than take up the screen space on this post, I attached a PDF document. Please read through my notes and let me know if this helps.

Thanks for your efforts in solving this issue,

Fred

yqliu · ‎04-03-2020

Hi Fred ,

Thank you very much for sharing your testing notes to me. That's very helpful!

I'm glad that you like the concept of Fusion 360 Electronics. In the next update planned in the middle of this month we will fix a lot of issues our customer reported. Thank you and everyone again for helping us to improve Fusion.

I have to say I can't explain what happened in your note for now. May I ask you a few questions?

Were you pushing your design from desktop EAGLE to Fusion or just using the "View 3D PCB" command inside Fusion Electronics? I guess you did everything just in Fusion 360, right?
Did you manage the 3d packages in library.io or Fusion 360?
I noticed that there is a pad at the bottom left corner of AA-SKT-2X40-50MIL but it became a small box in all other pictures:

Is it a pad of AA-SKT-2X40-50MIL or a separated package?
Did you see any special error/warning messages during your testing?

I will also do some testing about the "lock" option.

Thanks,

Richard

fheineman · ‎04-04-2020

Hello Richard,

Thank you for your quick response. First, win answer to your questions:

Yes, I worked entirely within Fusion 360 Electronics.
I managed the 3D Packages in Fusion 360.
The pad your are referring to is a ground wire tie point that I generated within the same custom library. It has no 3D package of its own, so a bogus body is assigned to it by Fusion 360 which I hide in the browser.

I did some more testing late last night, but did not take detailed notes. In summary though, I pretty much convinced myself that the problem may be with the specific component that I first suspected. I believe the Lock option may just be a distraction for the software, sending on a different path that under certain circumstances avoids the 3D package problem. "Bad?" component - AA-SKT-2X40-50MIL "Good?" component - AA-SKT-2X40-50MIL-STP

This is what I think I observed:

If I use the version of that part that uses the .STP file from the manufacturer, the problem does not occur, independent of the Lock condition. However, when I place the original offending part in the design, the problem returns, even though I may be able to divert it with the Lock option.

The offending part uses a 3D package that I modified in Fusion 360 by removing the pins and replacing them with extruded bodies merely for esthetic purposes. Probably not a good idea!

I attached a zip file containing: my library file, the PCB design files as they stand at this point, the 3D Package files for both versions of the part, and the Fusion 360 files used for these 3D packages. Let me know if there is anything else I can send or do at this end to help resolve the issue.

Good luck,

Fred

fheineman · ‎04-05-2020

So last night and this morning I discovered yet another interesting aspect of the 3D package issue. I added more parts to my Fusion 360 Electronics PCB design by copying the section that I already completed and pasting it into the existing schematic

I pushed the schematic to the 2D PCB and then to the 3D PCB. This all worked pretty well, but the 3D packages for the added Jumper Switches were scrambled as shown here:

That was around midnight and I just didn't wan't to deal with it then. I saved and closed the PCB design and quit Fusion 360.

This morning I fired up Fusion 360 and opened my PCB design with everything looking as I had left it last night. Feeling optimistic, I tried updating the library on the schematic page, pushed the schematic up to 2D, updated the library there then pushed to 3D. Now the scrambled 3D packages are fine.

I should mention that immediately before I encountered this issue I had changed the footprints for all of the parts in the library contained in this design to increase the drill size of the pads. As usual when I started up the design this morning I encountered a recurring issue with my custom library not showing all of the devices contained within. That is another issue that I will document in a new thread and post in this thread later.

yqliu · ‎04-06-2020

Hi Fred,

I checked all of the files you shared and all look good. So the issue you saw are not the same with others. Did you tried cleaning the cache before? The path of the cache folder is:

[Windows] C:\Users\<YourOSAccount>\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Autodesk Fusion 360\<UserID>\circuitslib
[Mac] Users/<UserName>/Library/Application Support/Autodesk/Autodesk Fusion 360/<UserID>/Circuitslib

Please delete all of the files in that fold and try again.

"I should mention that immediately before I encountered this issue I had changed the footprints for all of the parts in the library contained in this design to increase the drill size of the pads. As usual when I started up the design this morning I encountered a recurring issue with my custom library not showing all of the devices contained within. That is another issue that I will document in a new thread and post in this thread later."

I think this is what happened:

There might be something wrong with the old version and after you changed the footprints, you have a new version which works well with the 3D PCB.

There is a known bug (and will be fixed in the April update) that if you put a footprint into a design multiple times, create 3D PCB, then delete the first one, all of the 3d packages could be gone. Could this be the recurring issue you encountered?