Creating Parent/Child components

[dpar15]

I have an assembly were one of the components is based on other components. I used top down design which worked great. Now I need to use that component in another assembly. How do I do that and maintaining Parent/Child relationship? I have used save as copy, but there is no relationship.  

[Anonymous]

Hi, I'm just thinking out loud here, and don't have access to Fusion right now, but one way I that might work ok is in your parent assembly turn off visibility to all but the component(s) that need to be used in another assembly, then save.  Then when inserting that assembly into another, my guess is that only the components with visibility turned on in the parent assembly will appear when inserted into another.  Of course turning other component visibility back on in parent assembly and saving that way will probably cause indication in dependent assembly that linked component has changed, but just don't update, unless made actual structural change in parent, in which case need to also be sure visibility is set properly again before saving.

Jesse 

[dpar15]

Tried you suggestion. Just imports the whole assembly. 

[Anonymous]

Yes that's what I would expect, but I just tried it and the components with visibility turned off in the parent assembly does indeed maintain those visibility settings when inserted into new assembly...actually it looks like you can control visibility of the linked components in the child assembly (although cant control visibility of linked bodies), so no need to control visibility in parent assembly.  I may be missing something, but it looks like when visibility of those unwanted components is turned off, for all intents and purposes they are not there.  

An alternative is to right click on unwanted component creation events (white cube) in timeline of parent assembly, and choose Suppress Feature, then save.  That way when import this assembly, those suppressed components will truly not be included.

Jesse

[TrippyLighting]

I think at the very least you should post a screenshot of your unfolded browser tree and explain exactyl what you are trying to do. You could also do a screen cast. The screencast tool is a free downlaod from AUtodesk and integrates noicely into Fusion 360.

Otherwise we'd potentially waste a lot of time guessing whay you might mean I think I know, but maybe my assumption is incorrect ;-).

[dpar15]

The assembly dwg is large. 30+ components. So inserting that into another assembly dwg that will end up having 30+ more components makes things bloated. I've tried several things. I don't think what I want is an option. I will just save the component to its own dwg then use it elsewhere. Just wont have the benefit of Parent/Child relationship. Now I need to find a way putting some kind of notation in the dwg. Which I think is going to be a whole different set of problems.  

[TrippyLighting]

It may well be the case that what you want is not an option, however, you have not really sufficiently explained what it is that you want. As such it's a little too early to throw out the baby with the bath water 😉

A 30 part assembly is not a large assembly. I helped designing automated assembly and test lines in Solid Woirks my professional past and 100, 200, 500 components are more the norm than the exception. What I am trying to get you to do is to explain in depth what you need. I believe I have a good feeling what that is and your design may serve excellently as an example for improved functionality to be placed into the Idea Station.

That's the second part of not throwing out the baby with the bath water. Just because a certain functionality does not exsist now does not mean it will never exist. If we can present a valid case on the Idea Station and gather enough votes at some point in time it will be implemented. Others may disagree buth the Fusion 360 team does a good job implementing features that are requested on the Idea Station.

[Anonymous]

Just wanted to mention another possibility, that in your parent assembly you can first quickly select a whole cluster of components via the Shift button, then right click and choose Remove.  This is a kind of "soft delete," such that when saving this parent assembly the soft deleted components will not be included in an import into a new assembly, but if/when you want to get those components back, just go into the timeline, do a Shift select of the soft delete events in the timeline, right click and choose delete, which actually brings those components back 😉

Good luck with your endeavors!

Jesse

[dpar15]

I figured my dwg wasn't that big compared to some. The power of my computer is something I will need to upgrade in near future. 

Basically I have a custom piece of machinery designed. There is a mounting component of the machine that I will use repeatedly on other configurations. Probably will end up with a dozen or more. That mounting component is based on other components of the initial design. I will use that mounting component as the starting point of the other configurations. So keeping the parent/child relationship will make updating all the designs very easy. I can save that mounting component to its own file but there is no relationship maintained. I want the option to save a component to its own file and maintain a relationship with the original. Hopfully that clarifies my need.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Did you try the Remove method I described?  I found a great way to do this, you first select the components (in the Browser tree, forgot to mention that before) that you don't want imported into another assembly, right click and choose Remove, as I described.  Then in the timeline, select all those remove/delete features, right click and choose Create Group.  Then, you can select the group in the timeline, right click and choose Suppress features, which will bring all those components right back!  So it's just a one click deal of unsuppressing  and suppressing the group to remove and bring back the components you don't want imported into other assemblies! (simply being mindful of the unsuppressed/suppressed state of this group when saving the assembly to be imported elsewhere)

I found you can also create a selection set of selected components in the Browser tree, but with this great grouping and suppressing/unsuppressing ability in the timeline, selection sets for this appear unnecessary.

Will be interesting to hear how this works for you!

Jesse

[dpar15]

I will have to experiment with making changes to the component. I'm thinking it would best to delete the group in the time line to revert the dwg back then make changes to the component. Then repeat your instructions.

[Anonymous]

Yeah should be interesting to see how it works for your needs.  Deleting the group as you say will work too, although the nice thing about suppressing is that it's quicker "turn on and off" the relevant components. 

Also, in this link it describes to be careful in a preferences setting that causes auto saving of the file upon exit:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/design-and-documentation/new-file-versions-keep-getting-created/td-p/5...

Jesse

[Anonymous]

Also it's kind of counter intuitive that suppressing the timeline group will make the components come back! 😉

Jesse