Guidance with quantities in the drawings

[damiennn_w]

Hi, I've posted about similar issues in the past and thought that I had more or less figured it out. But while creating the drawings for my latest project today I found myself getting really annoyed with myself and the software. I'm not sure if it's mostly my fault or if it's a mix of software too. Please advise. 

To explain the issue I had, I've designed a security cabinet that is a metal frame with 12mm round bar as the walls, basically like railings. I created one bar as a component, then copy pasted it and then used the joint command to create the rest, 40 to be exact, and used the same method for each of the other bars that needed to be different lengths. So in total over 100 bars of differing lengths. Well here's the problem I had with the drawing space. I usually create the drawing just of one of the components and use the table to give the quantity of all of the matching components. Only I had to go into the list on the left, tick ALL of the other components that where duplicates, then open each component so that I could turn off the bodies, so that they didn't show in the drawing. That took forever and I almost gave up. Is there a better way to do that? And why not give us the ability to edit the quantity in the table? I came here because I just can't see another way to do this myself. I also have a question about patterning but I'll start a new post for that if needed. Thanks for any help and sorry to make such a long winded post. 

[Drewpan]

Hi,

A picture is worth a thousand words but if you attach your file to the post we can see it and maybe help you.

The first thing we need to define is what do you mean by drawing? In fusion, a drawing is the actual engineering

drawing that is created from the model in the Design workspace. Are you having problems with the model or the

drawing?

So far you have said you have used copy paste to create 100 of these bars for your cabinet. Did you just create 100

bars or did you try to split them up into assemblies and sub-assemblies? An example of this would be the door of your

cabinet. A door would probably have a frame which may be made of 4 bars joined together. The frame would have a

number of bars instead of a front and back panel. These would probably NOT be copy pasted but a single bar created

and a rectangular pattern used to create the additional bars after the first one. This door panel you have just created

may have hinges from the McMaster-Carr catalogue.

The Top, Bottom, Back and Sides would be created as similar sub-assemblies then joined to form the cabinet.

If you create your cabinet in this way then all of your parts would be in easy groups and this would make switching

groups of "things" on and off much easier. It sounds to me that you have created this cabinet the hard way and that

is where your problems are coming from.

If you can attach your file and a picture of something similar to what you want in the end result we can have a look at

it and probably help you.

Meanwhile, I would STRONGLY recommend that you spend the time and do the embedded Tutorials in the Fusion

Documentation to learn how many of the commands and tools work. I would also strongly advise doing the Tutorials

in the Self Paced Learning that can be found here:

Also have a look at the three RULES pinned to the top of the Forum. This will help you a great deal and make your life

much easier. It is well worth the time spent doing this stuff and you will not regret it if you intend to go on using

fusion.

Cheers

Andrew

[damiennn_w]

Thank you for your reply, I'll upload a similar model when I get home from work later, but to try and explain better, I hate the pattern feature, it's almost impossible for me to find a good way to evenly space the bars using that as I can't find a way to start the first bar in the right place and have it re arrange them properly if I change the width of the panel in parameters. So instead I sketch points and attach to those using multiply with joints. I know that is the wrong way to do it but it's just what I find easier. Hopefully I can explain it properly later, I may even upload the full model. 

[damiennn_w]

I edited this post because I think I have found a way to organise my assemblies better. The turning on and off of bodies still is a ridiculous way to show quantities in the table imo but I've managed to find a way to minimise the work. I'll see how it works on my next project.