Best or common practice - sketch as master reference for multiple components?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

What are best practices in Fusion 360 concerning a reference sketch.

As an example lets take simple object consisting of to components - box and lid. See attached f3d.

I want them as components not objects, because goals are

A) They share same "global" shape/dimensions

B) Each should have it's own history
C) Quicker updates (master sketch updates propagates to all components that refer to the it, say i want to change width of box or some radius), much faster than if I were to redraw sketch in each component and then manage global state using parameters.
D) Lid can be reused with different height box and vice versa.

Right now I see no issues with reference sketch, but maybe i am missing something down the road in Fusion workflow?

1)
In top project component i created a sketch with box outlines.

2)
Created new component for box
Created a sketch within it
Via project tool scraped master sketch in the component sketch
Created offset constraint for walls
Press pulled (projection lines)

3)
Created new component for lid
Created a sketch within it
Via project tool scraped master sketch in the component sketch
Press pulled (projection lines) (i know that i could actually extrude it upwards which is more logical and later down the road throw the lid in top of the box via joint, this is just an example)

A, B and C goals seem to work.
D kind of. After exporting separately component Lid.f3d it works as the base sketch for it which originally had projection to master sketch consists now just of lines (there are no missing references or whatever). ALL constraints (line segment joints, dimensions, name it) though are lost, to make it well behaved I have to redo all dimensions, doable but meh.

Should a reference sketch be used or avoided in A-C goals?
Is project tool right way to go to bring in master sketch into component?

What about D goal?

Thanks in advance!

[Mike.Grau · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous,

Thank you for your post in the Forum and thanks for sharing your design.

Should a reference sketch be used or avoided in A-C goals? Yes, should be used
Is project tool right way to go to bring in master sketch into component? Yes, it is

What about D goal? Yes, it can be reused

1. I think you got a great workflow. What will help is creating groups for your time line features and name them properly
2. The "ground" function should not be used initially for all components, better to ground a reference part and use joints for everything else.
3. You may also want to turn on "Component color" and use "Selection Sets"

I hope this helps.

Thanks,

[Anonymous]

@Mike.Grau Thanks for your answers!

Thus all good, which is nice 🙂

1. I already discovered that one can group timeline via example files, that helps a lot.

2. I'll keep grounding in mind and use more joints.

3. Leaned Shift+N, thanks!, and already been using selection sets for more complex fusion tryouts.

There was a forum error, contacted support and they fixed it, however that left it with duplicate topics, the other with more discussion

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/design-validate-document/best-or-common-practice-sketch-as-master-ref...

I will repost your answer there, mark this as solved.

Can admins somehow close this duplicate?