Best practice for non identical-components and assembly

[Anonymous]

Hello, I am new to Fusion 360, coming from Sketchup, and very much impressed and happy with all the capabilities of the software so far. 

I would like to understand two things that I currently can't figure out. 

1st : Assembly : I make furniture that are made with several parts. I started to design each part in a new design, thinking that it would be more easy to organize and access this way, and was planning on dragging them all into another final design to assembly (hoping that if I need to edit a part later I could do so in the original design and it would cascade update in the assembly). Is that not recommended ? I've read this thread : http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/design-validate-document/fusion-360-assembly-modeling-strategy/td-p/53... but can't quite figure out whether that applies to my case as I don't understand all the messages entirely and the software seems to have evolved in the meantime. When I drag my parts in the design, they appear in the items list with a chainlink and it seems I cannot do much with them. For example I cannot create a mirror image of the bodies. 

2nd : When I make a chair, it is common that the legs are all the same up to a certain point. That means they all share the same profile but I need a hole in the back ones for example but not in the front ones. I am not sure what the best practice is in this case. What I was thinking was to create the profile of one leg (let's say front right). Then mirror its body once to get the back right one. Then turn front right into component and mirror it another time to get front left that would be an instance of the component and would get all modifications the same. In the end what I want is the two front legs to be instances of components and same for the back ones BUT if I need to rework the basic shape of the legs be able to modify all four at once. Not sure whether I'm clear. 

If anyone could guide me a little on the recommended "steps" for how to get my chair done assembly and components-wise that would be really nice ! It's not like I have done much so far so I could totally restart using the recommended way... Thanks a lot for reading me...

[HughesTooling]

Have you seen this thread.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/design-validate-document/foundational-concepts-preview/td-p/6579145

Videos 1 and 5 should help a lot.

As for your question about making the legs, make a new component and make sure it's active. Create the leg up to the point where they will all be identical, then make a new empty component and copy the body from component1 into component2, after the copy the body in component2 will be independent. You can use mirror for left and right, I'm assuming component1 and 2 are one front and one back.

To make edits that affect all copies roll the timeline back to before you copied the body into component2. 

Mark

[HughesTooling · Accepted solution]

Here's a screencast to demonstrate the workflow I tried to explain above. It shows how the parts are indipendant after copying the bodies or mirroring and how you can roll the timeline back to modify the master body and the copy.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Mark,

thanks a lot for the answer and the screencast, that's really helpful and gives me a good understanding of what can be done and how when it comes to modifying instances of components together or separately.

I watched the videos that you linked. If I understand right, the recommended way to do something like I do would be to design all components in the same file but make sure to follow rule #1 ? i.e define components as soon as possible ? 

[HughesTooling · Accepted solution]

At the moment that would be the best bet, working with external linked designs is a bit restricted. There are improvements promised that should make it possible to use the same sort of workflow using linked parts and edit in place.

And yes follow rule #1 and you'll find it a lot easier to manage and edit your designs.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Alright then.

Thanks again for your help and time, I really appreciate !