How to scale a component?

[Coscor_NPL]

Hi all

I want to make a finished/theoretical part/document and then insert it into a new document where I apply scale/shrinkage, so I can build a plastic mould/tool around it... this is smart because then I can update my original 'teoretical part' and then it would update on my scaled part... further I can make small 'plastic flow' adjustments to the scaled part without affecting the teoretical part.

Does anyone know how to do this?

My current (not working workflow)

- I make a document A (Doc_A) and make a 'box shape' body in this document

- Then I make a document B (Doc B) and inserts the Doc_A...

- Doc_B becomes an assembly

- In Doc_B I try to make a scale on the Doc_A... but this is not possible

Thanks!

[HughesTooling]

Unfortunately that doesn't work at the moment because you can't edit a linked component. The only way to do something similar is to do it all in one document.

Start with your base component here names Base, when you've finished the design make an empty component and copy the body from the first component into the empty component.

Activate the second component and add shrinkage etc.

If you need to modify the Base component roll the timeline back to before you made the copy and make the Base component active then make your modifications.

Modify base part.

Move to end of time line and the copy will update. Any modifications to the copy will not effect the Base component.

Here copy modified without effecting the base part.

Mark

[Coscor_NPL]

Hi HughesTooling

Thanks for the very detailed explanation.

If i understood it correctly, it was sadly not entirely what I needed... (I could not insert the original/thoretical part into another assembly without the shrinkage, unless I remembered to jump forward and backward in the features, everytime before i opened either the Teoretical overall assembly or the Tool assembly)

BUT! It did give me some insight and an idea!

So I tried this:

1. make new document and insert the teoretical part inside

2. copy the body and put inside the document, move it 100mm away (not sure if this is needed, Just for safety) then Scale the new Body

3. Hide the theoretical component in the shrinkage document... (only unsurety is if a hidden component is included if i make a bolean with the document. hente the 100mm away)

Voila! now I have a Doc1 (theoretical) if I edit this then it reflects in Doc2 (with shrinkage) and If I make changes to Doc2, it does not reflect to Doc1

This means I can keep using the teoretical part for my 'overall assembly' and have a 'modified version with shrinkage' for the Tooling assembly

This is awesome, thanks a lot for the help! It's a little stupid workaround, but let's hope these 'bad tricks' gets flushed out as time passes

Also I'm sorry If my solution actually was the same as you described, if so, I must have misunderstood, anyways It did the trick for me to understand how to solve the problem...

Thanks a million... Now It's possible for me to actually use the program professionally 🙂 (this problem was crucial!)

[Matthew0x]

6 years later.

There is still no way to scale up or down the imported component, no?
I thought that the idea of components was... to re-use them in designs.

Not sure how you managed to do it guys, because when creating a new internal component it forbids me from selecting the already imported component as the base/parent.

When copying and pasting the same component, it also gets tagged as external.

[Matthew0x]

I can't see the option to edit my previous post, so for people who live in 2022:

> import the component
> select the component (it has the chain icon)
> right click -> "break link"

Quote:
"Great Success"

You just managed to convert the externally referenced component into a local component that can be scaled up and down. 

[Coscor_NPL]

no, that is not what is discussed here, if you break the link, you cannot edit the original component/body

as of now it seems it is not possible

[Coscor_NPL]

As of now the only solution that works for this is to make the modifications inside the part itself by making shrinkage in the end of document itself... and then roll back before that and make the changes...

That means as of now it is IMPOSSIBLE to have a 3D part component inside an assembly and also have that part inside another assembly where shrinkage is added... stupid... (eg a robot setup with many components and tools that make the individual parts)

They even removed my original solution above, if you make another document and insert the component it will not work, no matter what i do (also with copy/pasting body)

#VERY STUPID! been annoyingy stupid for over 6 years!

[laughingcreek]

you can do this type of thing with derive.

[John_Wright]

100% for the derive option.

Derive the part in to a new file

If you happy with the location of the part, just scale it where it is. 

If you are unhappy with the location of derived part, you are going to have to do a bit of fanagling to get it where you want it to be. You can "move it" but personally I don't like move as it's not very parametric. I do the following:

Extrude a part as a new component that is fully encompassed by the derived part. "combine" this new component with derived part and make sure "keep tools" is not checked.

This will then give you a component that you can "join" into any location in the new file. You can then scale the part to add shrinkage from there.

You can then construct the rest of you tool design around that. You can 100% design injection mold tooling on fusion and keep a complete history with original part. 

[HughesTooling]

My workflow for mould design is insert the part, use Boundary Fill set to new component to create a copy of the linked component body. Then scale the copy and position with a joint. 

 EDIT. I've found you should never copy\paste a body into a component. If the copy breaks at any point there's no way to fix the copy and because it's at the start of the timeline deleting and recreating causes havoc along the timeline losing references!

Here's an example.

[John_Wright]

I hadn't considered using boundary fill. Will have a go on my next project. (one of my last ones is below 🙂

Yes, agreed, copy and paste seem fraught with dangers.