How to structure a project, way of thinking

[Anonymous]

I'm a brand-new hobbyist user of this amazing program and has started to plan for a big project. I'm an enthusiast PC modder that is planning to build my own computer from scratch. I plan to make the entire build in Fusion 360 to get a clear view of dimensions, needed materials, airflows and more.

With any big endeavour you start small and I ran into a problem how I should think and structure my project. To help I will outline a small example to help me simply my question and thoughts.

Let’s say I need to create a box. Each side of the box is composed of a few details, just not rectangular sides. A side can have a fan-hole, another a threaded hole etc.

How should I ideally structure that box in Fusion?

My own thought is to make a single component for each element and then mount them into a complete box. If that is correct, should that box then become the assembly or is it a component consisting of other components?

Tried to find this out for myself, but hard to get the expertise and experience out of a manual. Sorry if this is a very simple question, but only have a few hours with the program (and in CAD in general). Hoping to get a friendly push in the right direction J

PS. Hello community DS.

[paul.clauss]

Hi @Anonymous

Thanks for posting! It looks like you have some questions about how to structure components>bodies>features in Fusion 360.

To begin, I would recommend having a look at Fusion 360 R.U.L.E. #1 - it gives a good overview of when a component should be created.

To address your box example, I would create a component for the box, activate it, and then add the features as features while the box component is activated. I have shown how I would approach this in the screencast below, hopefully it will help you get started! You could create the features as components and then join them to the original box - this would simply require your to use joints to define their positions. Adding the features as features while the box component is active will allow you to sketch/create the features in their intended location rather than having to create the joints later.

Assemblies can be thought of as "component groups" in Fusion 360. Any file that contains more than one component can be thought of as a component group. The component designation is required to add joints or other assembly features. Bodies exist in the global coordinate space of Fusion, while components are given their own origin and joint references.

Hopefully this helps! There are many ways to go about structuring projects in Fusion, so don't be afraid to play around a bit and see which workflow works best for your needs. Please let me know if you have any questions.