Internal or External components for mold design?

[PinnacleMachine]

This was my first foray into using F360 for an injection mold design and have run into an issue with exporting internal components to new F360 components. 

I had initially designed the mold base back in April when I don't believe there was an option to save parts internally or externally and I could export the individual components without issue; but now I've tried a bunch of times to export a part to a new file for machining and it doesn't match the part in the assembly and there are a bunch of errors in the design history. I could export the part as a step file and bring it back into F360 but I was hoping to have associativity between my assembly file and my machining file. I don't want to machine the components within the original mold file because the number of assembly components will grow exponentially - with work holding for multiple setups (clamps, 1-2-3 blocks, vises, electrode holders etc) and stock models.

I have designed my core/cavity inserts as external components and find continually having to manually click and update each and every assembly context is a big pain in the ass. It would be nice if there was a global rebuild button.

I think I'll go back to SW for mold design.

JP

[HughesTooling]

Are you using derive to export a copy, that's what I do. You can push the derive out from the assembly or create a design and pull the derive into it.

Mark

[HughesTooling]

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@PinnacleMachine wrote:

I have designed my core/cavity inserts as external components and find continually having to manually click and update each and every assembly context is a big pain in the ass. It would be nice if there was a global rebuild button.

I think I'll go back to SW for mold design.

JP

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How complicated are the moulds? I normally create the tool in one design then derive out all the parts for machining. 

Mark

[TrippyLighting]

Before you come to rash conclusions, maybe share a design. Based on your descriptions and my own experience transitioning from SolidWorks there is a chance that you might misunderstand some of the functionality in Fusion 360.

Components saved with "Save copy as" into an external file in the data panel do NOT maintain the relationship with the originating design ( and never have).

Components that are inserted into a new design from the data panel maintain the relationship unless you break the link between them and the new design.

If you want to create machining set-ups and tool paths to a component out of the assembly design that component or body has to be derived out of the assembly into its own file. Derived components will maintain a one-way relationship, meaning if you change the component in the assembly using, the derived component will update. However, if you make edits to a derived component in the derived file, those changes will be local to that file only.

[PinnacleMachine]

There doesn't seem to be the option to derive. If I save as a copy the part isn't correct.

[PinnacleMachine]

Mark, this is a fairly simple mold design. I remember in the past being able to right click on a component and derive a "new" part from it. But I can't seem to find that anymore. 

I know it's different from SW in the workflow but something seems weird here.

Unfortunately being in a small shop where we are constantly under the gun it doesn't allow time to play around with things.

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

Yeah, I pulled that out of thin air 😉

 

[PinnacleMachine]

Ok I found the derive option from the create toolbar.

[HughesTooling]

There's also a derive on the insert menu that lets you pull bodies, components etc. from a design as well.

Mark