How do I make a component (PCB in this case with 500 components) into a single component, but not STL file?

[philrydin-orwin]

Yes, my new MacAir M2 is getting bogged down with a PCB that has several 100 components. I would really like this to be a single component in order to speed things up. I have tried .sat .step .iges and .stl. The stl did export as a single, but I don't want a mesh in my design and the export process left it 'open' throwing up a warning. I used to use .sat with my previous package and that worked a treat. Selecting all the bodies oner at a time would also be tedious, but maybe this is because I can't use OSX ? All help appreciated. 

[TrippyLighting]

How is making this a single component speeding things up?

Have you tried and succeeded with that approach?

[philrydin-orwin]

Thanks. The circuit board has come from Altium and has 100's of tiny components, I am struggling to combine them, it just throws up errors, perhaps because they don't overlap. I can just delete them. I thought that if I had a simple component Fusion would not have to deal with separate bodies, but as you say its still got to be imported. The .stl file looks mad. I will just delete loads of bodies. 

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

You can select bodies by size in Fusion 360. That will help a lot with all the passives, which likely make up 90% of the components.

[philrydin-orwin]

MANY THANKS, I was having communication issues as well. Love the select by size selection tool.