Clone/Copy Component Question

[Anonymous]

I'm learning a little bit about different ways to copy components, but I'm trying to find the best way to do what I want. For ease of explaining, I'm creating a simple box with a lid. While the box is going to be a standardized shape/size, I will be making multiple modular lids for the box. Each lid would have different holes or mounting points but fit exactly the same on the standardized box. Currently the initial lid sketch constraints are referenced against the box, so as I'm prototyping, if I change the initial box design, the lid will change appropriately.

Now that I'm looking to making the "alternate" lids, I'm not sure the best way to do it. If I make any specific changes to the blank "master" lid component, like a chamfer, I'd like those changes to move to the "alternate" lids. However I want to make some changes (mostly holes and mount locations for electronics) to the "alternate" lids completely independently from the "master" so a direct component clone wouldn't be appropriate.

What's the best way/tool to manage this? Should I simply rely on the sketch constraints and parameters for the basic shape and just duplicate custom work like chamfers to each component? Is there a "partial clone" option? I'm fairly new to Fusion 360 so I'm sure there's a lot I haven't seen yet.

[shahriarsifat1802164]

Copy the component and go to your base model or root object and active it then paste new.

It will make them independent components.
Thank you

[shahriarsifat1802164]

Screencast Link:

Break the Copy link | Fusion 360 | Autodesk Knowledge Network

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies so far, but that's not exactly what I'm wanting. I don't want it to be fully independent. As I'm still prototyping a lot of this, I may make changes to the master/parent component that I want to copy down to the copied/child components. However I want to do things to the copied/child components that don't change the master/parent component or any other copies/children components.

What I envision this looking like would be something like a timeline based copy, where everything before a certain point in the timeline is copied from the original component and any changes made are reflected in all copies, but everything after that point is independent. So if I change the master/parent, those changes filter down to the children, but if I change the children, it doesn't filter up. Like a "break copy chain" step in the timeline. Before this point is a clone, after this point is independent. I don't know...

Maybe this isn't possible. I know it's a fringe case as I'm not quite cloning and I'm not quite creating an independent copy.

[g-andresen · Accepted solution]

Hi,

take a look at this thread # 19 (screencast)

günther

[Anonymous]

Awesome! That's exactly what I was looking for! So it's more about how I interact with the timeline after a "Paste New". Seems straightforward enough... I just didn't think of that. I appreciate the answer.