Fusion 360 unable to handle "large" assemblies

[Anonymous]

Dear Fusion 360 team,

From the beginning we have been big fans and great supporters of Fusion 360.

Me and 2 of my engineers have followed the Fusion training course locally and we enthousiastically (but step by step) migrated from Solidworks to Fusion.

In the beginning we took the lag and freezes while working on it for granted. It is/was still new, (almost) every update brougth some improvements. But still we do our production drawings on SW, because of speed and ease of use.

The main reason for sticking with Fusion was the easy way to collaborate and the fact that it runs on Mac as well.

In the meantime we have been able to design a complete new machine on Fusion. However the last part of the design process was hell. Which is quite an understatement. 

We now have stranded in a situation where it is merely impossible to work in a normal manner.

When designing a toaster, the program is probably great, but as soon as you create a 50+ parts assembly and/or put some 50+ parts assemblies together the fun starts....

We have had great help locally from Autodesk Germany. So let me start by first thanking Mike Grau for his help and support so far.

He checked hardware, internet connections, settings, etc. Great job.

I do however have a small problem with the final conclusion/answer.

- Fusion can not handle large assemblies. Probably in the future...

solution: 

Simplify as much components as possible by deleting bodies and faces
Re-model imported SolidWorks files where possible
Use Selection Sets to Hide not important components
Reduce the number of features by a scroll back in the timeline

If there were parts or faces in the assembly that we could miss, they wouldn't be there. Trust me.

We are far from building airplanes or any other complex assemblies and I do not consider our assemblies large. Even our old SW could handle our assemblies easily on our old workstation. 

I am sorry but I can not categorize this as a solution. 

So why market Fusion 360 as a SW alternative and why promote it with nice complex assemblies (for example the model of the sportscar) when in reality it can not handle a simple assembly of a machine?

Maybe you target a specific market of designers that make toasters, bicycles and other comparable products. If so, that is fine.

However reality is that I now ended up with disappointed engineers and a situation where we have lost confidence, hope and enthusiasm. One of us is already back on SW.

My believes in Fusion as the future platform for 3D cad, keeps me from accepting that this is the end of the line for us.

I am convinced that the majority of cad users have "larger" assemblies. Are they all encountering the same problems?

Could someone please give me some sensible advise what to do next? Go back in time with a traditional cad-program? Back to SW? Inventor? Try Onshape?

Thanks in advance.

Ivo Geukes 

[PhilProcarioJr]

@Anonymous

You can do an stp export from the file menu.

[Anonymous]

Only export options are:
Iges
Sat
Smt
Step

No stl...?

[Anonymous]

Only export options are:
Iges
Sat
Smt
Step

No stl...?

[PhilProcarioJr]

@Anonymous

Sorry I meant Step.....need more coffee...

You definitely don't want .stl....

After opening the Step file in Fusion you should be able to tell right away if this is going to work for you as you "SHOULD" see a performance boost.

This might not help you but I thought I would mention it just in case it does.

[Mike.Grau]

Hi @Anonymous 

Hi @Anonymous,

I have reached out to @jeff_strater and we do work together on it.

We´ll keep you updated.

Thanks, 

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous,

I took a look at one of the designs you have shared with Mike.  To be completely honest, this is pushing what Fusion can handle today, admittedly.  And yes, everything is slow in this model.  I would agree with most of the suggestions on this thread, to be able to use simpler versions of components when possible, work in sub-assemblies in separate designs, etc.  If it is OK with you, I'd like to use this model for doing some performance profiling.  Over time, we will be focusing more on large assembly performance issues.

The one thing I would like to point out, however, is that the initial post referred to problems with "50+ parts assemblies ".  As far as I know, Fusion performs well with assemblies of this size.  The design I looked at contained 1500+ leaf level components.  If you all come across smaller assemblies that do not perform well, please let us know.

Jeff

[Anonymous]

@jeff_strater

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your honest (but still bit disappointing) answer.

With the 50+ assembly I ment combining some 50+ assemblies with some nice mechanical joints into one master assembly.

Immediately you then create a non workable situation with Fusion. 

The example you have seen is some steps further in time and a typical machine that we build.

The workaround that @PhilProcarioJr suggested maybe offers relief. We already did some quick tests and are investigating pros, cons and work methods to prevent errors.

If this workaround is a solution for us we can maybe stick with Fusion considering that some performance boost is still needed on the drawings-side of Fusion and we are anxiously waiting for sheet metal.

I sincerely hope that Fusion will make some performance leaps in the future instead of most packages, getting slower in time. 😉

I will keep you informed about our progress.

And please be open and honest in marketing about the assembly capabilities of Fusion. So new users are informed what to expect when they create more and more with Fusion.

Of course you can use our machine assembly for testing as long as you keep this information classified at all time.

I will also ask @Anonymous and @Anonymous to keep you in the loop of the monthly list of bugs and tips we write down on the whiteboard.

At the moment there is a very nasty one that misplaces components in assemblies after opening. Suppressing and unsuppressing makes them pop back in the correct place again. Component is then misplaced again after saving and re-opening assembly.

Ask one of the above for an example, they would be happy to show you one.

We will stay in touch.

Keep up the good work!

Best regards,

Ivo Geukes

[O.Tan]

@TrippyLighting, good idea. Based on your suggestion, here's some of my findings. I also inserted the time taken to open (Note that all files has been opened before so it's cached within my system for 30 days).

Performance is acceptable and overall operations in the file still works properly

Performance is fast though moving the whole sub-assembly with the move tool is considerably slower. And overall, it seems opening an assembly with reference components affected load time.

I then decided to open the 2 sub assemblies on their own

Performance is acceptable and overall operations in the file still works properly

Performance is acceptable and overall operations in the file still works properly

[O.Tan]

Anyone who would like to open the files above in their machines, just pass me your email and I'll invite you to the project.

Now I have a project that's NDA, and right now this is where Fusion is totally unusable except for rendering, as everything is just too slow. I can't show you all the photo of it, but here's the component.count

It takes 10:11 minutes just to open the assembly and another 7:34 minutes (maybe less) before I can do anything with the assembly. 

I've tried opening this file in other 3D CAD system before and though the viewport performance is slow, it definitely didn't take 10 minutes+ to open the file.

[Ellworx]

Hi Phil

I too have a large assembly 1000plus components and am experiencing slow performance.  I followed your suggestion of exporting as a step file and uploading again, but I'm not convinced it is any improvement. Do you know of a way of converting a large sub-assembly to a single component as a way to improve performance?

[PhilProcarioJr]

@Ellworx

Unfortunately large assemblies are the Achilles heal of Fusion at this time. If my suggestion of converting everything into dumb solids didn't work, then nothing probably will.

As far as making everything one component....You will see little to no performance increase and in most of my tests that makes performance worse along with losing the ability to create joints correctly. It sucks I know but there isn't anything we can do about it at this time. 

Does your assemblies use modeled threads on any bolts or nuts?

[Anonymous]

Contact sets was my issue! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

[hoegge]

I just have to concur, that Fusion 360 is very slow in many situations even if you don't have a very big assembly, i.e. just about 10 components with a longer (maybe 100 steps) timeline. A general overhaul and profiling of everything, that takes time to compute, would be more than welcome. Things like patterns also can make Fusion crawl. Too often you get very long compute time / stalls > 5-10 seconds or crashes (daily), which is really not good enough.

So a sprint with focus on stability and speed would be well spent, I think.

[Anonymous]

Jeff,

I did read the discussion about performance issue dating 2016

The model I am building consists of:

Component.Counts

With Overrides:

LeafOccurrences 136:

Bodies 1041:

VisibleLeafOccurrences 100:

VisibleBodies 260:

LeafOccurrencesWithVisualMaterialOverrides 306:

OccurrencesWithTransformOverides 0

If I want to finish my model number of bodies will be doubled.

I am wondering if the problem of "turtle speed" is caused by desktop configuration.

I am thinking of buying a new desktop.

I hope that will solve the problematic speed I am encountering.

Can you advise me : Is the problem to be found in my PC or is Fusion 360 also responsible for the low speed.

Could you or one of your co-workers give me a specified -up to date- configuration for a desktop that will improve Fusion 360 speed significantly.

Below you find the PC configuration which is giving me no joy in working with Fusion 360.

Processor : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 750 @  2.67 Ghz

Installed RAM  : 12.0 GB

Graphic card : Geforce GT240  
Totaal beschikbaar grafisch geheugen: 4095 MB
Toegewezen videogeheugen: 512 MB GDDR5
Videogeheugen systeem: 0 MB
Gedeeld systeemgeheugen: 3583 MB

internet speed   200 mb/sec download

                          20 mb/sec upload

kind regards,

Pieter Ganzeveld

[jeff_strater]

Hi @Anonymous,

It's a little hard to say for certain, without seeing the design in question.  But, from the stats you posted, Fusion should be able to handle this size of assembly fairly well, assuming that the components are not made of overly complex geometry.  If you want to share your design here, I can take a closer look at it.  Regarding your computer specs, the main thing that jumps out at me is the i5 processor.  I suspect that this will be a problem for you.  I'm not an expert on the minimum Fusion computer specs, @Phil.E is a better person to ask.  The main things to look for, as far as I know are:  Processor speed, memory, and graphics card.  The faster those are, the better.

Jeff

[Phil.E]

@Anonymous

Your computer specs look okay.

The body and component count in your design should be okay. Can you describe when you experience a slow down in performance, such as what command or workflow you are using.

Thanks,

[Anonymous]

Hi @jeff_strater @Phil.E

I presume jeff and Phil will receive this post!

I added the design in Attachments.

If this isn't working I will send you a link.

Phil,

see attached screencast

[Phil.E]

@Anonymous

The design you attached appears to be empty.

[Anonymous]

I will give you a link 

Pieter