copy/move - but parametric

[tkessels]

Hi!

I am creating a wooden box for a Flower from scrap material and I decided to design it in Fusion first so I get a little training.

This is the final object I am designing:

In the above case, the planks around the box are extruded one after another manually, 12 times. The above design is parametric and behaves like it should if I change the measurements of the planks or beams. But it was annoying to create twelve sketches and extrude twelve planks that were basically the same. Especially if I want to make changes to the planks like holes or fillets that would be even more work that I have to do times 12.

In a new attempt I am trying to create one plank and reproduce it 11 times.
This is what I start with:

Now I use the move/copy-command to create a copy and move and rotate it to the position of the next plank. This is what it looks like:

The plank was reproduded with all holes and I am happy until I try and change the size of my final box using the parameters box:

The copy/move command is not parametric and therefore the plank is not in the correct position any more.

Does anybody have an idea how to duplicate the component and put it in place without losing the parametric design?

Thanks for your help!

[HughesTooling · Accepted solution]

Have you tried a circular pattern the a rectangular pattern to create the 2 layers of planks? All the vertical layers would be the same, I noticed you've rotated the second layer 90°.

Mark

[tkessels]

Thank you! That's the magic! It works for the first layer and from there I can use the rectangular pattern for the third layer.

Now I only have to figure out how to make the second layer dependent from the first layer as it is mirrored along a vertical plane. (Not rotated 90°, because that would not change anything, but you saw that correctly, that there is a difference.

[HughesTooling · Accepted solution]

Could you create all 3 layers with a pattern then rotate the middle layer around either the X or Y axis rather than the Z? You would need to create an axis in the correct place but that should be quite easy.

Mark

[tkessels]

would that not affect the other two layers in the pattern? I will try it, thank you!

[HughesTooling]

Not 100% sure but think you should be OK as long as you select them as components not bodies.

Mark

[HughesTooling · Accepted solution]

See attached sample file. Does work if you're using components.

Mark

[tkessels]

Dear Mark,

thank you so much for your support. I was able to use the circular pattern to create the four planks around the box and the rectangular pattern to create the second and third row of planks. I then created an axis "perpendicular to face at point" through the center of the second row and used this axis for the rotation of the four planks and everything looks great:

After the rotation, I open the parameters and change the "height"-parameter of the whole project ("Höhe" in my parameter box, the "+50mm" was added). In this case you can see that the axis is still exactly in the middle between the top and bottom row of planks, but the middle row is too low. (plus I am surprised that the "Move/Copy (rotate)" command does not appear in the timeline).

Upon further inspection, I can see that the distance between the bottom line of the top plankd and the top line of the middle plank is 100mm which is twice the value I added to the height (50mm) before.

It makes me think that for some reason, while the perpendicular axis moves with the resizing of the box, the middle planks stay in their original location and rotation around the moved axis moves them down because the axis is not in the center of the planks.

I can not observe this behavior if I change the height without rotating the planks before. In this case, every plank stays where it should:

Do you have any idea what could go wrong here?

I attached my file in case you might want to inspect it!

Best regards,

Thomas

[HughesTooling]

The attached file works. Not sure I like how I've done it not tried anything like this with patterned parts before. What I did was move the middle row of components into another component then rotate that component using a joint.

Mark