Best practices for duplicated components and inserting them?

[jcwren]

Here's my scenario: I have a manifold (pipe) that has four flanges. Each flange has 8 bolt holes. Another flange with a section of pipe attached connects to each of the flanges on the manifold. This comes out to a total of 32 bolt holes.

The flanges are bolted together with a hex head bolt, two washers, and a nut. This results in 128 joins: A washer joined to the manifold flange, and a nut joined to that washer, then a washer joined to the mating flange, and a bolt joined to that washer. This is very tedious to build, so it seems it can be simplified by creating a component that's comprised of a joined washer and nut, and another component comprised of a joined washer and bolt. These bolts, nuts, and washers all imported from the McMaster-Carr catalog.

Is this a reasonable work flow? Now suppose I wanted to replace the hex head bolt with a socket head bolt. I should be able to edit the bolt+washer component, hide the hex head bolt, add the socket head bolt, and join that to the washer. The weakness is that if I wanted to change the washer out, I'd lose all my joins to the flanges. So is there a graceful way to handle this kind of situation? Maybe create a dummy face on the bolt+washer component, and join the washer to that face, and then the bolt to the washer?

When copying and pasting the components, they always appear at their origin. This results in a lot of zooming in and out, dragging the component over, maybe rotating it, and finally doing the join. It seems like a "paste at current view point" would be a useful option. Is there a graceful way to handle this?

Lastly, managing where the joins are stored: The joins for the pipe flange and bolt+washer should be stored in the Joints folder for the flange component. But this puts the joins for the flange on the manifold with the nut+washer in the top level Joints folder. Does that make sense for organization?

I'm looking for any good tips for managing the components and their joins where you're dealing with a huge number of joins.

Thanks!

[jhackney1972]

Long read and hard to get a feel for your issue without a model to look at.  From what I read, I would create sub-assemblies of flanges and bolting and whatever else is common and save them out.  I would insert them into my top level assembly which will make the creation of multiple Joints much less as you will only be joining sub-assemblies together.  When you create your Drawing Parts List make sure to use the Multiple Levels selection.

[davebYYPCU]

Sight unseen - not used the new Insert fastener function - yet, 

In real life you may have 137 components, but why do you need all of them in Fusion?

The distance between both washers is the same?

If you really do need them all. 
Assemble the bolt nut washers in a new file.

Insert / position one bolt Assembly. Ground it.

Pattern the bolt assembly same as you did the original holes.

Rigid group will save a huge number of joints.

Might help….

[Drewpan]

Hi,

That's a lot of joints.

Under normal circumstances you would only insert the hardware if it was really necessary, in the same way that you

might only insert a thread but not model it. The intent of the design is there but the fiddly bits that really slow the

Fusion software down is not.

I would suggest that the Manifold is what you want designed but the options for actually bolting it on are endless.

I would personally leave the actual bolts out of the design and use joints, but in the documentation have a note that

either directs that hex head bolts and washers of a certain size are used for assembly or a list of other options.

There is no real need to model the hardware, you know it will be there. The joint is what the design needs to model

correctly.

If you insisted on putting in all of the bolt and washers then I would set up ONE with the joints and hardware set up

on the individual bolt as a sub-assembly and then make a single joint on the manifold with the sub-assembly. I would

then copy and paste the sub-assembly for each bolt and make another single joint on the manifold. If you wanted to

then change the hex head to a socket head bolt then all you would have to do is change the FIRST sub-assembly and

the others would be automagically updated. Basically, create sub-assembly and make it active, import parts, join

them all together in the correct relative place. Make main assembly active, create the single joint with the

sub-assembly, copy the sub-assembly and paste a copy into the main assembly, rinse and repeat until all hardware

is done.

If you are moving stuff around then you are doing it wrong. Either Build in Place and use an In-place Joint, OR

move it into position with a simple Joint. I agree that things get lost when they import to the origin, simply

temporarily turn off visibility of the component in the way to see and use the component, then turn visibility back

on when you need it.

When managing where Joints are stored keep it logical. Either put ALL joints in the main assembly OR put each joint

in the assembly or sub-assembly it is related to. This is as easy as selecting which assembly or sub-assembly is active

when you create the joint.

In a nutshell, work smart and not hard. Do it once where you can and ignore it if possible. If the design is going to be

used to create comprehensive assembly documentation then you will need all these bolts, if the documentation is

for fabrication then ignore them and use notes.

Cheers

Andrew