Fusion 360 - Wrap sketch around cylinder and extrude

[jake8D8CE]

Hi

I thought I was doing quite well learning Fusion360 but I have come up against a complete brick wall!

I am trying to model a cctv camera housing. Hopefully you can see what I have done so far here: http://a360.co/2cwwLj6

What I am trying to do now is draw a 'bracket' that will attach the tube to the wall. In it's simplest form, this will be another 'box' like the current one on the side of the cylinder, with a flage on it to allow it to be screwed to the wall.

However, I want to model it as a separate component so as it can be exploded away from the cylinder.

I cannot for the life of me manage to draw a rectangle on the side of the cylinder, and then extrude it so as it matches the curve of the cylinder.

I have tried drawing a rectangle on a tangent plane to the cylinder, then extruding the shape into the cylinder and then trying to split it as a new body, but when I do that and convert it into a component all my joints break and the other components all start moving together!

Can anyone point me in the right direction? 🙂 

Thanks in advance

[Beyondforce · Accepted solution]

Hi @jake8D8CE,

Do you mean something like that?

Cheers / Ben
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[jake8D8CE]

Thank you so much!

I wish I had found this little dropdown this morning!

Now I am in business again 🙂

What a brilliant community getting such a good answer so fast 🙂

Thank you again!

Here's how it looks now

[jake8D8CE]

Can I ask another question?

The bracket I have drawn in my picture above (or indeed the one you drew) - what would be the correct approach to rotating that around the cylinder by 90 degrees? At the moment I drew it 'in place' and used a simple 'as built joint' to lock it there.

I did think I could draw a rectangle onto the cylinder the same size as the bracket in another location, and then 'joint' the bracket to that, but I got completely stuck trying to project a shape on a tangent plane onto the cylinder itself. I think I was getting an error about being unable to project into the same plane or something like that.

[Beyondforce]

@jake8D8CE, you could just use the move command or any other tool or technique that you feel comfortable with.
If it was me, I'll use the move command 🙂

[hanskellner]

I've just posted the initial version of a Wrap Sketch add-in.

You can grab it from Github: https://github.com/hanskellner/Fusion360WrapSketch

A little late to the game but it might help in the future.

[Beyondforce]

Hi @hanskellner,

It should be added permanently to the Fusion defaults scripts!

nice work 🙂

[hooperbill]

Unfortunately I am unable to get the add-in to work. I am running the Mac version2.0.2727 of Fusion 360. I am attempting to follow the video, I have my sketch and cylinder placed according to the instructions and the result are a few sketch points in space. Any thoughts  would be appreciated.

[TrippyLighting]

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@hooperbill wrote:

... unable to get the add-in to work...

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That 's not much of a description to go by 😉

If you could make a screencast of how it is failing that would probably help.

[hooperbill]

Sorry about that, hopefully this will help. Thanks for your quick response.

[hanskellner]

I'm sorry you're having problems with the script.  I believe the issue is a limitation of the script.  At this time, it only supports sketch points, lines, and splines.  Other sketch curve types such as circles and arcs aren't yet supported.

But I was able to approximate your example by drawing the sketch shape using splines and then selecting those for input to the add-in. Posted a screencast below.

Again, sorry it wasn't clear about the limitations.  The script is work in progress.  And you've now reminded my to update the documentation 😉

Hans

[hanskellner]

One more screencast to show how to get your example working.  I just traced over each curve with a spline and then used those to project to cylinder.

From the video description:

This video shows how to use splines to approximate curves in a sketch. The splines can then be wrapped to a cylinder by the add-in.

Note, the video also exposes a defect in the add-in where multiple bodies are created. The duplicates are deleted during the video. The problem is causes when the add-in projects to the cylinder and creates bodies. It assumes each spline is closed and for each projects and then creates an extruded body. But in this case, there are 4 splines that are all connected to form a single closed area. So 4 bodies of that area are created.

[Noah_Katz]

@jake8D8CE

> I cannot for the life of me manage to draw a rectangle on the side of the cylinder

Late to the game, but I would've sketched on a plane perpendicular to the cylinder axis and extruded along that.

[Bela_DEMO]

Why do it is? I take the same way, but the result is this.

[hanskellner]

I can't tell from the screenshot the direction your cylinder is oriented and the if the sketch is on the XY plane.  The script is limited at the moment to requiring the sketch to be on the XY plane and the cylinder's orientation Z up. 

[Bela_DEMO]

Oooo yes, sorry my mistake.

[TrippyLighting]

Hi bela,

Welcome on this side off the pond 😉

I made a lengthy screencast on the Germann forum showing how this is done.

[hanskellner]

Well done screencast!

[ilja.coveliers]

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@TrippyLighting wrote:

Hi bela,

Welcome on this side off the pond 😉

I made a lengthy screencast on the Germann forum showing how this is done.

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A bit late to the party, but thanks for the video !!!
I tried it and I've managed to get it working, thanks again !!

But this method will be replaced with the sheet metal method I guess.

[jvh674QU83]

i wanted to extrude/cut a sketch out of a cylinder

i tried the sketch wrap add-in but that doesn't do the trick for me because it simply doesn't extrude/cut - so i found this video from desktop makes that shows how to do this all rapidly