Aligning sketch shape boundaries

[Anonymous]

I'm new to f360.

I've made a made a sketch of some shapes I want to cut out on a 2D laser cutter. I want to fill the sheet will multiple copies of these so I am selecting all the edges of a shape and then copying and pasting a new copy into the sketch and moving it into position. 

I would like to be able to align some edges of my shapes so that they touch up against each other without a gap. I know that if the shapes are simple rectangles for instance I can dimension them and then use a collinear constraint to align the edges. However this doesn't work when the shape are ones I can't constrain with simple dimensions, such as arc segments. 

Is there a recommended way to position sketch shapes? Or a way to lock a series of lines making up a shape together so that can only be moved as a whole? 

[Beyondforce]

Hi @Anonymous,

Welcome to Fusion 360.

If the shapes are the same, then you should use the Rectangular Pattern instead.

Cheers / Ben
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[daniel_lyall]

There are a 101 ways to do what you want to do, It's called Nesting.

Without seeing what you are trying to do it makes it very hard to recommend what to do if you export and attach your model it would help.

You do this by going to file (the file looking icon top left) scrolling down to export select it, untick save to cloud and tick save to computer and select a logical spot to save the file to, then attach to your post. if you require a NDA you will have to weight for a staff member or someone else. I don't do NDA work.

[Anonymous]

Many thanks for the offer of help. 

See the attached file. Effectively I want one layer of window frame that is cut from a single piece (this will be the outer layer), then from this shape I want to cut 2 other layers of frame but from small sections that will be cut out from unused parts of the board. (eg. where the glass would be, hence want to pack them in as tight as possible.) The only other thing to mention is I want to have the joints in layers 2 and 3 not overlap, so I've been dividing up layer 1 in different ways. The file is my working and has more shapes than I actually need but should give you the idea of what I want to do. 

cheers, 

[daniel_lyall]

What is your sheet stock size you would like to use.

and can you do one window frame as a solid with each different part as a body, it's just to confirm so I can get it correct. It's quite easy what you wont 

[Anonymous]

I'm going to cut these out from a full size sheet 2.4m X 1.2m. Since the laser cutter takes DXF 2D vector files I only really need the 2D sketches and not 3D bodies (though later I would like to make these). 

Once I can position shapes in the sketches so that they pack together tightly I will see if I can cut more than one window from a single sheet but the goal for now is just to be able to pack the shapes in neatly. 

[daniel_lyall]

At the moment I can only guess how the parts of the frame go together. The spots where I have circled make it so I can't do anything are they joined like that what.

  

the below pick is coded is this how you wont the final outcome to be when the window is built

[Anonymous]

The first layer I want to cut as a single piece. This should be a single window shape without any breaks (lines) dividing the outline of the window. Then I want to cut out 2 more layers but rather than being a single cut, I want to take 2 copies of layer 1 and segment it up in 2 different ways to produce smaller pieces. I then want to move these 2D segments of frame and pack them in the sketch in the parts of the sheet that are not being used (the space's where the glass would be in layer 1 and rest of the sheet outside of the frame). The reasons I want 2 copies but with the brakes at different places is so that when I glue the layers 2 and 3 together again the segments will overlap and the joints will be stronger. 

So my question is when I'm moving small shapes around the sketch, either straight edges or segments of the curved arch, how can I make the shapes snap together (or otherwise efficiently align) so that I don't waste wood? 

[TrippyLighting]

Very simple, but probably a little unexpected.

Fist of all, your sketches are almost completely undefined. There are almost no dimensions on these parts and when rearranging stuff that can easily lead to trouble.

Each individual piece of wood needs to be extruded into a component (not just a body).

Then you can use the joints in the assemble menu to assemble and arrange all of these on a shet of wood.

Once you ,like it, you can project all the pieces outlines into a new sketch, which then is the sketch you'll export as a dxf file for the laser cutter.

[Anonymous]

ok. Thanks for your advice.As an alternative, rather than create component parts and assemble them. Would it be easier to make a single solid body (or component i don't know) and then divide it into layers and then the layers into parts and then arrange these on a single sheet? 

[Anonymous]

Also, I have another slightly unrelated problem. None of my closed shapes in my sketch are showing as closed shapes (they are not shaped off yellow inside). If i create a new rectangle in the sketch it doesn't show as a closed shape/profile. If however I create a new sketch and create a rectangle in that then it is shaded yellow and is selectable as a profile for extrusion. For some reason I can't do this in sketch1. Do you have any suggestions, should I file it as a separate question, or could it be a bug? 

[TrippyLighting]

In the browser, right-click on the sketch that does not show the profiles (yellowed areas) and select "Show profiles".

You might have accidently toggled this at some poiunt in time

As to what might be the best way to model this, so you end up with the parts, there are many ways to do this. I might make a screencast if I get to it tonight.

[daniel_lyall]

@TrippyLighting Thanks trippy I wont be able to do much to tonight  I have some earthquake damaged equipment to fix, if you can show how to model the window frames better that would be good.

[TrippyLighting]

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@Anonymous wrote:

... how can I make the shapes snap together (or otherwise efficiently align) so that I don't waste wood? ...

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What kerf are you going to get with your method of cutting ?

Or in other words, if you want the pieces to "snap together" as designed, there is no allowance for any kerf.

[daniel_lyall]

@Anonymous We need to know the kerf.  This is needed for the offset between each part what is needed for the nesting and the paramater for it, I can take a stab in the dark it will leave you with some work to do.

Personally I don't like to guess, when I am trying to help someone.

attached is how far I have got.

[Anonymous]

I hadn't considered the kerf (new addition to my lexicon). 
I imagine it's sub 1mm. I'm waiting for a reply back from the engineer but I think we can work with 1mm should be good enough. 

[Anonymous]

So I think the conclusion is: 

-i need to do Nesting. 
-to do this I need to make the sketch entities into bodies and then components and the use the functionality for jointing? 

Where do I set the Kerf?

[daniel_lyall]

you add that to a user paramater for the spacing between each part so if you kerf is 1 mm make the paramater 3 mm, material gap and in the last bit of the user paramater diag put kerf x 2 +1 mm breathing room just incase it is 1.1 mm