Hi,
I would strongly suggest you have a look at Rule #0, Rule #1 and Rule #2 in this forum, it will help you a lot.
In Fusion you have the Browser tree down the left side with all of your Stuff in your design. There are many
ways you can do stuff, but there are also limits to what you can do with different things. You might want a
simple straight forward Widget so just drawing a Sketch and Modelling it is fine. Or you might want some complex
Gadget full of complex Assemblies and Sub Assemblies that all interlink and work together.
In Fusion we usually try to have a good workflow that is easy to follow so that we remain logical, and we try to use
good design and engineering principles. That starts with how you use the Browser and the Timeline.
Say I am designing a simple gear train. I know that I will have two gears, two shafts, a couple of bearings, some
kind of box to hold it all together. How do I start?
A good way is to set up my Browser tree so that I know where everything is, so I give it a name, set my dimensions,
and maybe import a Canvas to help me get dimensions right later. Ok I now save this as my Container to build my
gear train.
Now I need to start designing my first gear. I could stick everything into the top level of my browser tree, but
1. It will all get complicated with everything in the same place, and
2. I will only be able to model the parts and not use Fusion for what it is powerful for - simulating stuff.
So the first thing I do is create a new Component. This tells Fusion that this is an important "thing" that will
probably interact with other things. Now I activate my new Component and start designing it.
I draw a Sketch and fully constrain it because unconstrained sketches cause problems down the line. This sketch
may even be imported from an AutoCAD file or generated by a script. What I end up with is a Sketch of the first
gear. When I extrude the gear to actually work with it it becomes a Body. I can make heaps of bodies that can be
extrusions, surfaces, sheet metal, plastic, whatever. I can combine them up or otherwise create my gear. Everything
I have done is on my Timeline at the bottom in a nice logical way. If I need to make a change, I can come back to
this part of the timeline, make a change, then fast forward back again.
I now repeat these same steps and make a Component for my other gear, both of my shafts and start on my
box to keep them in. Right now however I might not have all of the information I need to design an effective box.
In Drafting I will have worked all this stuff out in advance, in Modelling I can do it on the fly. That is what makes
Fusion and other Modelling software so much better than Drafting software.
Ok. I have most of my parts, now I want to put them together and make them work so I can do a few tests or
Simulations on them. If I just had a bunch of Bodies all together in one place then I could put them together
in 3D space, but I couldn't do anything with them. If I want to simulate my gears I need to put in some Joints
between my Components. First thing, put my gear onto my shaft with a Rigid joint. Do the same with my other
gear and shaft. Now I need to fix my shaft into my box, so I ground the skeleton of my box to stop it from moving
and I mount the first shaft with a Revolute joint. This tells Fusion this joint can rotate. Lastly I put my other gear
into its joint, another Revolute joint and they should mesh together with the first gear. Not quite there yet.
Finally I want to set up a Motion Link to my joints. I first make sure my meshed gears are not embedded in each
other and adjust their position, then I set up my motion link so that when gear 1 rotates 360 gear two rotates
say 180 degrees. I know my gears are supposed to work like this and now when I actually use the mouse and move
one of the gears in my project it will do what I have told it to do.
Now if this project was all I needed then it would now be about done. I modeled each part, I built my machine
and it works. I can now do Motion Studies and Stress analysis and such.
I may also want to import my gears into another machine. To do this I can export my model and import it as as
Assembly, which is really a fancy name for a Component that has a bunch of other Components inside it.
So in a nutshell, you model parts of your design with bodies, and you make them interact by converting them
or building them as Components, and you make Assemblies and sub-Assemblies out of groups of Components.
The basic Container is a Component. Components interact with Components.
Each Component is made of one or more Bodies.
I hope this explanation gives you an idea but look at the Rules and you will not be disappointed.
Cheers
Andrew
