Fusion R.U.L.E #1 and #2

[TrippyLighting]

[Post modified to remove "360"]

Fusion R.U.L.E #1
When in doubt, before doing anything, create a component and make sure it's activated.

All objects created after activating the component such as sketches, bodies, construction geometry, joint origins, etc.  are created in that component.

This has several advantages:

1. On activation the timeline is filtered to show only those items in the timeline that pertain to that component. That will make the quickly growing timeline much easier to work with.
2. If a component is exported to the data panel with "save as" this will also export the complete parametric design history.
3. The joints in the "Assemble menu only work with components.
   Drawings can only be created from components
4. Only components show on the BOM.
5. Only components can be added to selection sets.
6. Only components can be isolated.

When another component needs to be edited for example to add geometry, it should be activated before doing so.

the above points apply to assemblies as well.

Exceptions to R.U.L.E #1

There are a number of other workflows that are  perfectly valid but the first step would not be creating a component. For the most part these are top-down design workflows:

1. When you create a skeleton sketch that carries features of several parts of the design and is used to extrude or otherwise create several bodies that then are turned into components. That conversion into a component, however, should happen as soon as possible because features added to a body contained in a component are all added to that components design history.
2. When the design starts with a T-Spline for example the exterior shell of a product that is then split int one or more bodies. Here also conversion into a component should happen as soon as the bodies are created.
3. A design for a single part to be used as an external, linked component (X-REF) in other designs. No component creation is necessary in this case as that design when inserted into another design is inserted as as a component.

 This is also well explained in this 6 minute video tutorial.

Fusion R.U.L.E #2
Name Your Stuff!

No explanation necessary...hopefully 😉

[j_d_olsen7]

Regarding Rule #1:  Several dozen hours into Fusion, I just learned that when you a convert a sketch, body, etc, to a component, that the sketch, body etc, is still contained within that component haha!  I was not understanding why you'd change to compnents because I felt that you could no longer make edits/ add features.  🤡  Until recently, I've mainly only been doing simple one off bodies for milling/ 3d printing.