Extrude New Components From Component Without Having To Draw New Components Separately And Extrude

[contact59W8V]

Hello, I’m hoping someone can help me out. I only use fusion about three or four times a year so I’m not on top of all the ins and outs. I’m trying to design a simple scalable storage bin cabinet that I can cut out on my CNC router. Basically the entire thing interlocks together using through mortises and box joints for quick and easy assembly. I have one of the sides drawn using parameters so I can change the thickness of the plywood to get the joinery exact. Unfortunately I’m just not having any luck when I try and extrude the top, bottom, shelves, and the back from the side to make the new components. I can’t figure out how to extrude it as a complete new component in one step and not have it join or cut the existing side component.  I end up chasing my tail back-and-forth trying to cut or re-join something only to have it do the exact same thing on the previous piece that I just made. It’s driving me insane, it shouldn’t be this hard. I’ve seen people do it without having to completely draw each individual component and extrude them. I have uploaded the file, and it should seem pretty self-explanatory looking at it. You can see the construction lines where the other pieces mate up. Thanks in advance. 

[jhackney1972]

You will want to Extrude and select the New Component Option or New Body depending on what you desire.

[contact59W8V]

Extruding and making a new component isnt the problem. When I try to extrude from those overlying box joints it either doesnt extrude the entire piece (three individual pieces instead of one), requiring multiple extrusions, or it cuts into the existing side component.

[JamieGilchrist]

Hi @contact59W8V ,

There's a few ways you can handle this.

1. When Extruding set your operation to a new component, this will ignore any other bodies and not perform a boolean operation.

2. Turn off the visibility on a previous made body or component (as seen above) and the Operation will default to New Body, you'll still want to set your operation to New Component

3.  You can create a New Component and set it to activate when you create it, then make your extrude with the default operation of New Body (which is what you want in this scenario).  Boolean operations will not happen across components when creating new features. 

However, you can use the Combine command across components, just understand that tool bodies, if you don't keep them will end  up in the component of the target Body

Here I'm using the Combine>Cut to mortise on Component2, if the KeepTools is unchecked, that body (from Component 1) will be consumed and Component 1 will then be empty.

[JamieGilchrist]

make your construcion lines regular sketch geometry.

[jhackney1972]

I am still guessing as to the issue but maybe my Screencast will help. 

[contact59W8V]

Heres a screengrab that shows what happens. I see no way to extrude a new component from the existing component without taking multiple steps that inevitably end up cutting off the joinery on the top of my component.

 

[jhackney1972]

Your first sketch needs to be modified and then it is simply done with two extrusions.

[contact59W8V]

It looked like you accomplished what Im trying to do, but I have no idea how you got there. If I hide the existing component it still joins or deletes part of it when I extrude.

[contact59W8V]

Are you on a Mac or PC? I followed your steps exactly on my PC and your method didnt work unless I hid the original component before did the second extrusion. If I tried it your way with it visible it joined into the side piece and deleted all my joinery again.

[jhackney1972]

I am using a Windows computer.  I made another Screencast because in my last one I did not make a component, I made a body.  Creating a new component is what you want and the process goes a bit different.  Please pay close attention to the "activating" of the newly created component before I do the second extrusion as a Join.

[contact59W8V]

I appreciate the help. Unfortunately I think this is where I walk away from Fusion 360 and not renew my subscription. This is not intuitive, and with all of the little pitfalls along the way I will be running to the message board constantly for something silly. This is a business expense for me and it’s supposed to make things go faster. Unfortunately I have wasted a ton of time just trying to do simple things that I could have drawn and accomplished easily in a 2D cad program. For instance, like you said I have to activate a certain component before I can work on it. That’s great, but then how do I unactivate it so I can see multiple components at once again? I just tried figuring it out, and I can’t find it anywhere. Also, I mirrored that top component in the middle so I wouldn’t have to draw and redo the joinery on the one side. According to the help file, I need to use the join feature so I don’t end up with two components.  I looked everywhere and there’s no join feature because now it’s called the combine feature. Even the help tips in the program aren’t correct! I’m not going to waste 100 hours of unpaid labor trying to master a program that only makes things a few minutes faster. In the amount of time I’ve wasted trying to draw this cabinet I could have cut out the components manually and built three or four of them using simple joinery. None of this is intuitive and it’s devoured a huge chunk of unpaid labor I won’t get back. I took auto cad in college, and did well in the class, but this program has gotten ridiculous. There are only so many hours in a day and I can’t spend them all trying to figure out this program. I appreciate your help.

[JamieGilchrist]

Now, do a combine with the new component as your target and your 1st component as your tool and check the Keep Tools

[jhackney1972]

In the Screencast I mention how to Activate a component and then later on I mention you need to activate the assembly.  This can be done two ways, right click on the component or top level, and select Activate from the context menu or left clicking on the little circle beside either one.

Like all things in life, learning comes with practice.  If you remember back to your 2D days, you will realize it took time to learn that also but now it is old hat.  Give it a chance! 

[contact59W8V]

Thanks for the tip but I’m not expending any more time on this program. And it’s not about mastering it, I’ve been using fusion for over five years! The problem is there are constant little updates, and new features randomly inserted all over the place the casual user like me doesn’t know about. For the every day user these might be much welcomed features, but for the casual user like me they’re a huge pain in the rear when a once simple task suddenly becomes this ridiculously complicated thing which is what I’m encountering right now. Every hour I spend on this program trying to do something simple is money lost. If I put in 60 hours a week in my business, and now I’m suddenly spending 10 or 20 of that on this program unpaid, guess what? I’m losing a lot of money. This is a simple storage solution for my shop I’m working on, if this were a paid project I wouldn’t even break even with the amount of labor I’ve expended trying to unravel the new quirks. Not to mention the 500 bucks subscription on top of it.  I'm guessing they still havent fixed the vector issue in here either where in order to get an unbroken vector to import in my CNC software I have to extrude all my drawn components, create a new sketch from the extruded sides, and then export those as a DXF or I have a million broken vectors. I’m going back to a normal 2D CAD program with a one time license. I would’ve been done a long time ago and cut it out on my CNC already.