Enable Mates along with Joints

[jcnqh]

I understand what they're trying to do with Fusion in regards to the Joints to cut down on having to define 3 mates to fully define a position, but I don't think that's functional. The joints work great when things line up just fine, but when trying to place things in an arbitrary spot in the middle of a plane, I've had nothing but problems. I used to use Solidworks a lot when I still had access to the eductional version to make a 3D assembly of woodworking projects before building them to make sure everything was going to fit. Using the mates, I could basically force a part to be in the position I wanted it, lets say X from one edge, Y from another, and flush on a 3rd side. I've been unable to figure out how to do that in Fusion.

In short, Joints are a good idea, but don't totally diregard mates or constraints to define rigid positions that don't line up with other edges. Something more precise than rigid group and move. Having both would be a great benefit instead of forcing people to just use joints.

[jcnqh]

I managed to figure out how to offset components using joint origins. Once you get all of the joint origins in, the actual joints go quite fast. Instead of defining 3 mates, it's just one joint. However (and this continues my main point), in order to get that one joint, I had to define 2 other joint origins. To me, that seems like at best the same amount of work. At worst more work because instead of just selecting coincident faces and letting Solidworks do the math of where it ends up, I had to do the math using the measure tool and position the joint origin exactly where I needed it on both components. See reference picture of the final assembled result: 

In a case like this, I had to define 4 joint origins the peg (because it was an external file. If it was internal my understanding is that I'd have to define a joint origin on each peg, so that would total 6 defined origins) and 6 on the sidewall (again, external file. 6 again if it was internal). I know you can hide the origins. I did that after taking this picture. Just wanted this as an example of what I'm talking about.

This just seems like the user ends up doing more work when if there were mates and constraints allowed along side joints the program would be doing the work. As mentioned above, the joint idea makes sense, but constrains and mates allowed along side would assist in making things more user friendly, or at least help transition people to the idea of using the joint datums and joints when it makes sense for their project.

[daniel_lyall]

for what you have got there, there are a few way to do it, by the looks of it you did a pattern for the holes. since the shelf's and back bits are the same you could of just done a pattern for each bit, then you can have each shelf where you wont it and as many as you wont. same for the back bits. one way is how you did it. it pays to not try and do things the other cad programs way in fusion they have done a lot of stuff the fusion way and how you did it in another program wont work at all. what you have run into is a problem in fusion using bits from external files, I have run into the same thing my self if I can I will just bring in one bit of each bit required and do a pattern if more are needed it makes life a bit easier. it's a pain to have to use so many joints for something as simple as this you have my vote

[O.Tan]

Is there any particular reason why you need to mate everything?

Joints works best if you have a need for motion related stuffs. Rigid joints is the closest to a mate but it should be used with intent.

If you don't need things to be adjusted all the time, better tool to use is Rigid Group as it'll "glue" the selected group of components together hence when you use the move tool, it'll move all the component in the same group together.

There's some caveats with the tool that will require further usage to understand what and when to use joints vs rigid groups

[andy.cary]

Actually, I find the use of joints to be cumbersome.  Trying to find the correct face/point is taking me longer than having to select a mate and a pivot constraint for a rotating member (for example).  Not having the choice to use the constraint systems used in every other 3-D CAD system is preposterous.

[adamwoster]

A majority of my work is on mechanical enclosures surrounding PWBA's and their components. From my view on the mechanical side, everything is joined "rigidly." This is fine on the first iteration of a file when all the 3D models of the board have the components on their surfaces as I can just use the "Rigid Group" command. However, when the PWB designer realizes they can get away with a thinner board, and only sends me a thinner board I end up with floating components, such as below.

Creating rigid joints to land the component pins on the tabs is quite time consuming. Having a joint option where Fusion doesn't require snaps/measurements (planar SHOULD do this) would be amazing. Planar or slider should calculate the two planes AND NOT REQUIRE SNAP POINTS when making the two planes coincident. Then if there was a width joint I could fully constrain the item centered on the pad in it's nominal condition.

Please update the joints to make Fusion do more of the calculations and remove the requirement to snap items and then make the user do the math on the distance to center to nominal. I would rather use a planar and two widths to center the item; this is quicker than to measure, calculate, measure, calculate, and finally join.

Thanks for the consideration!

[suhailQ75LN]

Having worked in a couple of different engineering with a number of various clients over the past few years I always take an interest in what different CAD packages their designers know. Whenever we discuss Fusion360 we always come end up saying that fusion is aimed at hobbyists for lacking the basic functionality.

Design Intent - something the developers of this software should read up and learn about. 

All mechanical designers I been in touch with think about parts and how they will fit together. Nobody thinks/imagines that a part will fit in a certain position of another component (unless thinking of shafts or fasteners). When assembling parts, the parts have to be thought about in relations to parts in the assembly. That's when you need to mate parts in relation to others. All CAD packages have designed software this way. 

I have watched tutorials, extra videos and even earned a couple useless Lynda certificates in Fusion360 but I just cannot understand why the developers would mess up something so fundamental and crucial to design engineers. This is really not an improvement, and will not change the future of engineering. Maybe for product developers but not for engineers. 

The frustration this software is causing is unbelievable. 

[O.Tan]

@suhailQ75LN well said, though what Joints does really well is making it much easier to do motions, however saying that, its missing some features that can be found via traditional constraints, like how people expect mated surface to move in relation to each other but Fusion "solution" isn't that straightforward as it requires the use of timeline which will break if they're heavy changes to the design and fixing it sometimes will be impossible or will take just too much time 

[suhailQ75LN]

@O.Tan that's just a justification for a huge oversight. It's missing core concepts everyone had already had for years. You're trying to fix something that already works so well . There's no justifying these oversights to senior designers when you tell them how parts fit together in this 'new' sofgwaso called Fusion...