A new Fusion 360 Tutorials & Philosophy

[Beyondforce]

Dear Forum Administrator,

Since I joined this forum, I have noticed many new Fusion 360 users who are struggling in the beginning with this amazing software (including myself).

There are many reasons to why it is happening, which is why I would like to suggest a new Fixed post above the "Survey - Simulation & Sustainability" and the name should be "Fusion 360 Tutorials & Philosophy".

Inside this Post, we can add links to all the Standard tutorials AND add all the new Tips & Tricks, not only from Fusion 360 guys but also from other experienced user. There are many real life Tips & Tricks posts out there, and it's a shame they are not in one place. 

Since the Forum is the first place people are turning to, when something goes wrong or can't figure out how to-do something. It's only logical to create a Tutorials page in here.

When people initially starting to use Fusion 360, they are assuming that the Mindset behind Fusion 360 it is the same as the other CAD programs, but we all know it has a different Mindset/Philosophy!

Fusion 360 tutorials are spread everywhere and for a new user is a bit overwhelming. We are all ending up in this forum anyway, then why not move/open the "Fusion 360 Tutorials & Philosophy" in here?

May The Force Be With You.

Ben.

[Aaron.Magnin]

THIS is something I can work with for sure! I'll put this in my to-do list and will report back when its done. Great suggestion! 

[PhilProcarioJr]

@Aaron.Magnin

YOU answered your own question, usually when I teach someone how to do something I show them all the possible ways to do something and the good and bad for each. Just like the ways to make a cube video.....let's the user choose how they want to do it based on the way they work and what they prefer. Concepts are much easier to teach then work flows, but the first thing I did when I picked up Fusion was start developing workflows based on my needs. That required me to look at all the methods out there. It would have been a lot easier for me if there was videos of real world projects showing as many ways as possible to make the product. I hope that makes sense.

[Beyondforce]

I also adapted my workflow and started to work like @cekuhnen. Because, I'm constantly doing change to my model/components until I'm happy, and Fusion doesn't like my back and forth changes and it gives me all kinds of warnings and errors.
Then, I'm creating a new clean file with the final changes in the right order like Fusion likes it 😉

Ben.

[cekuhnen]

@Aaron.Magnin I think you overcomplicate things.

You cannot make it right for everybody anyway. Thats why i do not listen to company representatives when they try to educate me about

how the industry works aka how they personally only work and generalize that for everybody else: AKA everybody uses SW. yawn ...

Good instructional material can provide a general overview and basis how tools work and what best practice workflows could be.

Fact is that I teach my students that when they contact our Apple design studio recruiter they will expect a different Alias approach

than the Alias sculptors at GM. Companies itself have even different workflows and requirements.

Those I cannot and should not cover but provide a basis knowledge so everybody can instantly adapt.

After years being exposed to instructions I noticed that the majority simply repeat facts without giving reason to it.

You can teach somebody the gramma of a language by forcing the person to just memorize it or you could provide logical examples and explain

the concept so they understand the "WHY!"

For example Why does the G2 handle with splines in Fusion work so different? Hardly anywhere is this explained not even in the manual!

[Aaron.Magnin]

So on this, we did make a series of 5 videos for SWX users (my background)...I think there was a plan to make a website, but it has been put off or nixxed completely, not sure. 

Created a new forum post for these, see here:

**EDITED BY BRIAN.REPP TO CORRECT LINK**

[cekuhnen]

@Aaron.Magnin

Your link does not work!

While reading through the other posts I remembered on thought:

I would refrain from stating dogmas.

I found it very beneficial to show different concepts or approaches and maybe

providing a focus onto best practices. With best practise specifically how the software best works internally can be a perfect argument.

Example: do you drill a hole into 40 tubes on a sphere or do we make one few tubes drill into each and then array the tubes to make the 40 tubes?

1. approach works but is labor and time consuming

2. results into less work but still the same model

I hope this illustrates it better

In the end people will develop their own workflow. I always am surprised when people try to follow the industry standard and force one design through a

popular software instead of maybe using a different set of tools and be more creative productive and most important competitive!

[brianrepp]

Corrected Aaron's link above

[fritter63]

---

@cekuhnen wrote:

@Aaron.Magnin

I would refrain from stating dogmas.

An excellent point! As a software engineer myself, I often tell the young ones... "don't mistake personal preference for universal best practices"

[Anonymous]

@cekuhnen
Yes I had a contact from inventor suggest that fusion documentation is purposely vague because the ultimate intent is to" have pay as you go" tutorial material. Is that what you are working on?
Also it was suggested by them that Fusion360 is a "sandbox" for inventor, and that Fusion may always linger in development.
I hope not.

[Anonymous]

Fusion 360 R.U.L.E #1 exists because Fusion will only track History once a component is named and activated. I wish it would be activated (history) by default. : )

[daniel_lyall]

@Aaron.Magnin there are 3 main learning styles.

visual (eyes)

auditory (listing)

practical (hands on)   

any one person can be clased as one of the above, if you can cover the 3 main learning styles in your vids you will be covering almost everyone.

how and whys are always a good idea to cover.

a lot of the problem user are having is when and how should components be used, what needs to be in a component.

how should that component be set up, from the start or a converted body to a component.

there are things that must be in a component for some parts of fusion to work properly joints, drawings.

when I do a cabinet it is all in a component each part has it's own component and some parts go into sub components, the main sketch itself has it's own component.

there are reasons for this.

the main reason is when I nest it I can move a component to where on the stock sketch I want it to be onces it is where it is needed to be I can capture the position of that component.

I will move all components of the cabinet the same way.

when it is just sitting there nested I can still make changes to the thickness of the cabinet, holes positions and a few other things if the size of the cabinet changes it will need re nested as the stock size may need to be change.

all I need to do is scrub the timeline back and it puts the cabinet back together, I will delete the capture position re nest it and done. if it is all just bodys nup it don't work to good.

the stock sketch lives at the top of the tree as it is just a guide and does not need to be in a component at all, it is parameter driven but it is only used for nesting and stock size (length and width) in a cam setup the components set the height of the stock.

this works and does not fail at all, It has not failed yet.

when there are program updates the way thing are done changes but the way to do it stays the same components only nothing else, other than stock size. 

[TrippyLighting]

@Anonymous Nonsense in both cases 😉

The history is tracked by default in Fusion 360 when you start a new design.

If you import a part e.g. a STEP file the history is off, by default (for a reason).

You can enable/disable recording the design history from the root in the browser or from the gear icon in the lower right of the Fusion 360 screen.

As to the documentation, Fusion 360's documentation is not vague. It is simply incomplete and addresses some needs, but no others. For a CAD software that due to it being free for many attracts users from a much larger pool than most, if not all of it's competitors that is also a very difficult topic to cover.

[schneik-adsk]

@Anonymous

I wanted to clarify what you may have heard from others...

Fusion 360 has developed technology that Inventor picked up. Fusion is not a sandbox. It is a full featured product that stands on its own. It is not lingering in development.  Fusion 360 is actively being developed with new updates every two weeks. This will continue for a long time because this is how we react and deliver value to customers on subscription.

Kevin Schneider

Autodesk, inc.

[cekuhnen]

@Anonymous In preferences you can decide if by default history is on. I am a parametric designer so I hardly work with direct modeling.

I think fusion addresses a different customer base than inventor. Fusion is for Mac and win OS inventor is win only.

it seems to me also while inventor in some areas has more mature tools fusion pushes technology in areas inventor lacks.

I don't think they are the same apps - similar maybe.

[TrippyLighting]

Before this conversation gets too theoretical, let me explain why I started this Fusion 360's R.U.L.E #1 "thing".

As is easy to observe I have 230 solutions posted. I'll have used Fusion 2 years in November. That means two things:

1. I spend too much time on the Forum just to overstate the obvious 😉

2. I tend to help  many users solving their problems

Doing that I have found myself over and over and over again posting the same darned thing again and again and again. I have a text block now in Notes on my mac that I can simply copy and paste into a post. Before I had that note I started spelling the rule like I do so I could find it easily in another thread if I need it again for another user.

The first time I spelled it like this was on 15-Jan-2016. Now there are 7 pages of search results with threads were it was posted spelled just like I do and I usually only post it if it is clear hat it helps another user in their project. Mostly you can see that with the first screenshot! It ain't rocket science. I believe the users that come to this forum are a small minority of users. Many never make it here and never have the chance to learn this and when it applies. There are YouTube videos made by folks that get posted on professional sites as a reference that get this wrong.

I've seen noobs as well as seasoned CAD veterans step into that same top over and over again. Obviously there is a need.

Of course this is not a hard rule. Every rule has limits and exceptions and circumstances change so rules need to be re-evaluated on that basis. I do believe though that when the training materials start explain a few basic concepts that this will provide users with a much better understanding of when to apply what workflow and it also provides users with prior CAD experience with the tools to develop their own.

I am also of the opinion true learning and understanding can only come from exploration, experimentation and failures associated with these. If a rule is not working for you then challenge it.

One can only gain from that!

Based on that I'll change the wording of R.U.L.E #1 a little:

When in doubt, before doing anything, create a component and make sure it's activated.

[cekuhnen]

@TrippyLighting Here lets get your solution ticker one counter up 😉

"I am also of the opinion true learning and understanding can only come from exploration, experimentation and failures associated with these. If a rule is not working for you then challenge it.
One can only gain from that!"

This is is very true. My students hate it hahaha but then they realize I still experience the same - they always think I am that genious that makes no mistakes.

I think a lot of those repetitive questions could be answered with two things:

1. Better documentation. Take a look at Autodesk alias and how t hey explain surfacing and why to surface in a certain way. Best few pages ever I read.

cureently the fusion online manual feels like an appatizer and not as a serious "learn solid modeling from the beginning"!

2. Direct everybody that asks the same question then to the website while thinking RTDFM please 😉

'but for that "1" has to be achieved first 😉

i think hunk the biggest glaring issue is that there is learning material all over the place YouTube the web and and and - and that is hard to find and not centralized.

[daniel_lyall]

@cekuhnen it's RTFM no need for the D 

[cekuhnen]

@daniel_lyall Lol I did not know that hahahah 

[daniel_lyall]

@cekuhnen it was a 70 year old who told me that one, but he used the whole word 

[Beyondforce]

Ok guys, let me try to give you another example, to why I started this post.

Imaging you are meeting a guy, who wants to use Fusion 360 for the first time. Maybe he has a previous experience with another CAD software or maybe Not (doesn't metter)!. 

1. You need to explain the overall difference between Fusion 360 and the other CAD software; e.g. Cloud capabilities, Cross platform supports etc.

2. You need to explane the Basic Workflow, Work environment Capabilities as well as the mindset behind it; e.g.

•Components & Bodies relations, What you can/can't do with Components & Bodies.

•What happens or implications when you have multiple Components and you forget to activate the one you are working on. In which scenario you can fix the "Mess" and in which you must start from the beginning.

•How to properly use the Timeline and it's limitations.

•Talk about other Real-Life Workflows (like those mentioned by @cekuhnen and @PhilProcarioJr), how and when will you use them (Of course you can't cover all of them, but few examples, will help to kick-start the imagination).

•Some tools in Fusion are a bit behind other CAD softwares, like the Thread tool, which does not let you use your own Thread profile. Give some examples on how you can use those tools to create what you want. (I was thinking about creating a video, that shows how to manually create your own Thread, using the Thread tool). But of course most of those workaround are just temporary solutions.

Beside the above topics, Yes, there are a lot of other resources spreaded around:

*Fusion 360 YouTube channel

*Tips & Tricks board

*Learn section

*Autodesk University

Maybe there are more...

They are all good stuff, which need to be consolidated into one place (max. 2 places). 🙂

For now, I think we should stick to the above topics (which I hope we are all agree!), because they are a very essential Fusion 360 knowledge. Later on, we can always change and improve, but we MUST start somewhere.

The knowledge that all of you have is priceless and in many cases is also unique. Let's give the Fusion 360 guys (@brianrepp, @Aaron.Magnin and the rest of their team) few days to think about it. The above topics should be a good Head Start.

I would like to thank you all, for your constructive feedback. 🙂

Best Regards.

Ben.