Dont try to build spaceships

[HenryDara]

The Fusion 360 Splash screen shows a wonderful spaceship looking thing, boasting the innate abilities of Fusion 360 to create complex assemblies that can take you to the moon. First I must say that I think Fusion 360 is awesome, it really is, but its not all that.

What ive learned about Fusion components and assemblies is that they will ruin your day, and cost you lots of time if you use them as though they always work. The truth is, a design with lots of dependencies between components will sooner or later fail and have to be re-done from scratch. Joints will go yellow for no reason, alignments wont function, timelines will get corrupted where features cannot be removed, even if you want to get rid of the offending feature. And you will just give up and redo your design, hopefully getting closer to the mark the second time around (but never all the way there)

The only designs that dont have this problem are those that were built from components referenced externally to the main design. Which was how I started doing this to begin with until I wanted to build the spaceship from the splash screen (I mean that euphemistically of course)

So to avoid expensive time losses, i am now saving my components externally, and then re-importing them (after some external massaging) back into the design, in an effort to remove all dependencies that cause such problems.

Although this has me going back and forth between designs, and re-updating constantly, it always keeps things straight, and problems compartmentalized within their detached designs.

I really enjoyed working with Fusion 360 components, and building complex fully integrated designs, until I didnt. When it goes bad, it goes really bad, so IMHO Fusion is just not fully there yet for fully integrated workflow within a single design with more than just a few components.

[MichaelT_123]

Hi Mr TrippyLighting,

It could be difficult. I have Time management issue!

Regards

MichaelT

[GRSnyder]

This is all taking me back to Suspended, circa 1985. You're locked in a cryogenic tank and can only affect the real world by controlling a set of robots, each of which is outfitted for a different task. Iris has cameras and does visual processing, Waldo is mechanically skilled and has sonar, Whiz can interface with electronics, etc. The robot named Poet is a specialist in philosophy and metaphor; he provides a lot of critical information, but usually speaks in haiku or epigrams. Ah, good times. 🍻

[HenryDara]

Im sure all of my problems are completely self inflicted as some have stated. Cant follow instructions, wont use rule #1, or just somehow didnt follow best practices of which there are more than any one man can follow. I do always create my components first, before adding one feature, or sketch. I keep my timeline as error free as is humanely possible. And I am very careful about deleting vs removing any bodies, and dealing with the results of my deletions, which I use very purposefully.

Lets be honest here, Fusion 360 has bugs, some old, some new, and many that havent even been developed yet. 🙂 It does things before my very eyes that make this very evident to me. We all know they exist, but if you are in question just read the "whats new" notifications and you'll see that there are a lot of bug fixes being mentioned. I dont think anyone here would deny their existence. In reality, Fusion 360 is in constant development, and bugs are just inevitable. Unfortunately, after watching hundreds of hours of Fusion videos from Autodesk, as well as other good ones, I still havent found the key to creating and maintaining fully integrated designs that dont sooner or later fail, and need to be restarted again from scratch.

The only way I have found (even with following all the rules as best as I can) to keep my designs intact is by disregarding many best practices for a workflow that is more forgiving of the Fusion 360 anomalies that destroy an otherwise good design without notice.

Basic workflow (as crazy as it sounds, but never fails me)

1 - Create components (very first thing) in main design using other components more as reference using as few projections as possible. Though they are an easy way to get things going, I know they wont remain so I try not to rely on them as any kind of dynamic link between components.

2 - Whenever possible once the component is pretty much complete, I do a "SaveAs" of the component to the same folder as the main design, and then make the old component invisible in the main design.

3 - Open the exported component file and clean it up (fix all lost projections, lost sketch planes, yellow/red features in the timeline, and general look over)

4 - Drag new file back into main design and set position, then rigid group it to something permanent.

5 - Delete old component from design, and cleanup any problems that deletion causes. (hopefully not too much if I followed step 1)

6 - Double check all geometries coincide with known reference points.

Until I feel confident Fusion 360 can handle a normal workflow this is how im gonna keep things intact.

[Beyondforce]

@HenryDara,
There is one tip I could give you, which will help you a lot where you are right now.
When I started learning about F360 and I was creating a complex assembly, I worked with 2 files. The first file was for testing and the second file was the Production file.
Every time a started a new component, I created it in the test file and when I was happy with the results, I recreated it in the Production file. This way, the Production file was nice and clean with no errors!

Cheers/ Ben

[laughingcreek]

From your various descriptions of your problems and of your workflow, it sounds like your in the habit of creating references directly between sub components.  This is possibly the cause of a lot of your issues.  I endeavor to never reference between sub components.  If something is important enough that it needs to be referenced by more than one sub component, then it will live one level up in the hierarchy.   I also only reference original geometry, and never another reference.  These 2 concepts keep me out of a lot of trouble.

[jeff_strater]

wow.  That sounds like an exhausting workflow, @HenryDara .  As before, if you can show us a workflow that shows instability, we'd be happy to investigate.

[HenryDara]

You may be right. My design just crashed again, and now it will not import those external references. CRASH REPORT and another corrupted design. Just not sure what to do anymore. I have lost so much time fighting Fusion while all the time trying my best to follow all the rules, as many as there are. My design includes nearly 500 separate components, many of which are duplicates, and/or nested within other components. I avoid rigid joints as much as possible cause they mess up and cant be fixed later. Instead I align my parts and rigid group them to glue them together. These groupings just seem to hold together better, and are editable after the fact, as opposed to rigid joints which just seem to loose all reference. I have tried to work in an integrated design style, but thats near impossible with more than a dozen components, which is the reason for this current blather. Regardless of my workflow, my designs are getting corrupted, and Autodesk cannot fix them, nor can they tell me why its happening. I just have to keep trying, everytime getting a little farther, almost like playing a video game hoping I wont be eliminated for a wrong turn somewhere. Again, I really do love fusion 360, until I hate it 🙂 Just wish I could see my days hard work, but at the moment it looks to be gone forever... again. CRAP!! I was real close this time. Hmmmm 😞

[Beyondforce]

@HenryDara ,

Listen, the time you spend on trying fixing the model (very time consuming and frustrating), you can finish rebuilding your model from the beginning!

Learn from what you did wrong, move forward. This time, if you are not sure what to do, don't forget to ask us.

Another thing I forgot to mention earlier - Good Planning is the key to a successful project/modeling. Before I start any design I plane how I'm going to start, I identified the number of components there are going to be and if needed, how I'm going to structure the components inside Sub-components!

Don't forget to work with 2 files - Test and Prod. In the test file, you will figure out what techniques/s will be best to use and then build it in the Prod file. It will save you a lot of time and frustration.

Have a nice weekend 👍

Cheers / Ben.

[HenryDara]

Thank you so much. I especially like your two file method. I do want to get it right, but Im obstinate and cant let it got, but should. Your advice is the best ive gotten, thank you!

[Beyondforce]

We really learn only when we make mistakes, so you should look at it in a positive way 😉

[TrippyLighting]

@HenryDara you  should rally share your design! The remarks you make about joint behavior and the workflow you describe how you create joints sounds so distinctly wrong that I'd love to look at a design and investigate. I have never seen that behavior in my work.

[HenryDara]

Hi Peter, Thanks for the offer. I typed up a real nice PM with a link to the design, but the Autodesk site unfortunately says I have reached my PM limit and to try again later, so I guess I will try again later. Didnt know there was a PM limit.

[cekuhnen]

Why would one even build a spaceship in Fusion?

I am with 3D since I am 14. Now I am 43. So I learned used over the years many apps.

Ultimately while there is always the like monty python like attempt to find the holy grail one reality.

3D modeling is like that nice fluffy white bunny. Once you get close it turns out to have nasty fangs and

kills a group of knights.

What I try to say is no approach / workflow etc is perfect and the egg laying milk and wool producing pig.

Everything has somewhere the limits and the user needs to be very aware of that!

[TrippyLighting]

I wonder how many people are going to get what you are trying to describe with that "Eierlegende Wollmilchsau"

[lichtzeichenanlage]

🙂

[HenryDara]

Thanks all for the help, Autodesk is looking at these problems (had another file corruption today) but it takes time for them to dig through to see whats going wrong. For the moment the advise im getting is to uninstall and reinstall fusion 360 in hopes of fixing a corruption in the part that lives on my PC. A longshot, but better than nothing I guess.