How To Combine Multiple Bodies Into One Body?

[ekaj_999]

I've got a very simple model that has some raised text that I extruded using the 'New Body' option.

Fusion separated each of the 6 letters as separate text elements and I'm trying to combine them into one for ease of slicing, since the text will be a different colour to the main body.

I've tried several times to combine all of the text bodies into one body. But whichever body I select as the 'Target Body' seems to be duplicated. It creates a new component with all of the selected bodies, but the 'Target Body' both stays in the original component AND appears in the new component. If I then try to delete the text element in the original component, it deletes ALL of the bodies in the new component.

I was hoping I could solve this easily by unticking the 'Create New Component' option when trying to combine the bodies, but clicking 'Okay' doesn't seem to do anything at all. All of the separate bodies stay listed in the Browser. Perhaps because the bodies themselves are not physically touching.

Please can someone help me find a solution to this? I didn't expect it to be so difficult to combine bodies into one body, and I'm going to have to do this for a lot of my previous models since I now have a printer that can print in multiple filaments.

[jhackney1972]

Please attach your model.  If you do not know how to attach your Fusion 360 model follow these easy steps. Open the model in Fusion 360, select the File menu, then Export and save as a F3D or F3Z file to your hard drive. Then use the Attachments section, of a forum post, to attach it.

[ekaj_999]

Thanks for the reply - I've attached the file -

Please forgive my terrible workflow as this was one of the earlier models that I made (multiple sketches on one plane etc.)

[jhackney1972]

I have attached your model with all the bodies combined into one.

If this answers your question, please select the "Accept Solution" icon on my post. If you have further questions, please ask.

[jhackney1972]

This model is rather simple so Combine is very easy.  Video attached.

[ekaj_999]

Hi John thanks so much for the video -

Apologies but what I need to do is combine just the text, so ideally the project would look something like this

Body 1 (Main part of the model)

Body 2 (all of the text letters)

That way it will hopefully be a more efficient workflow for me when slicing the model to assign different filament colours to the body and the text

[jhackney1972]

Unless the bodies, composing the letters, touch each other in some way, you cannot Combine them into one body.  I would suggest a thin plate below them to use as a combining body.  Model is attached.

[ekaj_999]

Thanks John this is a really innovative approach and definitely a step in the right direction compared to my initial attempt - 

The only problem I have is, since there is a thin plate connecting the letters, it's included in the body when setting a different filament colour in my slicer.. any way around this?

[jhackney1972 · Accepted solution]

I do not know how a 3D Printer handles two color filament.  If this model is printed as a unit, not two components, you can bury the joining plate that makes the letters one body.  The attached model uses this method.  If you click on the second body, you will see it is the letters and the joining plate below the top body surface.  Other than something like this the only method I can think of is to print each letter separate and insert them into matching letter sockets in the main body.

[ekaj_999]

This worked great as a solution - thanks so much John 🙂 !