make cuts with component

[Anonymous]

I'm still pretty new to the software, so I might be having some issues with figuring out what phrases to search for. 

But I'm not finding much help on how to actually Model assemblies. All the help files I'm finding show you how to put things together, but it's all modeled up nicely for you, and the parts fit together. If something needs to fit into a hole into one component, I would think I would be able to reference a sketch from one component to the other, or directly use one component to do something in another. 

One thing I'm struggling with so far though is position. When a component is in the scene I can't figure out how it's positioned in relation to anything else. I'm coming from rhino here, so everything is direction modeling. It is where it is. There's no relationships.

So I'm trying to find some resource that helps me figure out how to go about this. 

Are people just directly modeling things that go together, then splitting them into components and building as built joints? I'm not sure how that would work. 

I'd really like to be able to use a sketch from one component to build from with a second component. That way, an extrude from one, could be a hole in another, right?

If anyone can help clear this up for me I would welcome any direction. 

[HughesTooling]

This might help give you some ideas about top down design.

http://help.autodesk.com/view/NINVFUS/ENU/?guid=GUID-C16322E5-CE0D-4BDA-AEFB-F8765CE19855

Personally I'd rather make a component first and create all the sketches and features for that part, then create the next component and project references from the first component and so on. I try to keep the main component empty and make my components as self contained as possible.

Link on why to make components.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/post-your-tips-and-tutorials/quick-tip-why-you-should-activate-a-compo...

And another.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6MMw-dfS8s

Mark

[Anonymous]

Thank you very much Mark. "top down design" was probably the phrase I needed to search for. 

I quick scanned through that page, and that looks like exactly what I need to get started. 

I was starting the same way as you suggest. Begin by making a new component right away and do that for each part. But I can't figure out how to reference anything from any of the other components. I'll work through that tutorial and see if it helps. 

I'm trying to learn it by doing some really basic stuff, even though it would only take any of us a few minutes to do in Rhino.

I'll see what I can get through this weekend and post back if I have related questions.

Thanks for setting me off in the right direction. 

[HughesTooling]

Take a look at the projection tools on the sketch menu, you can project from a sketch in another component or edges and surfaces of the model. 

The initial design can be quicker in Rhino but as soon as you want to modify parts something that might mean a lot of work in Rhino can be done in seconds with Fusion.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Project is definitely what I needed.

Unfortunately, it's somewhat difficult to search for because You Project a set of curves inside of the Project you are working on. Searching comes up with both meanings, and unfortunately it comes up with Many more of the later.

I did get that to work, but I am very unclear on how it is actually working. Do you know of any decent tutorials describing how that works? 

And about Rhino being not as fast in the end. That is only true if you've made your file perfectly. If you messed up the order of one little thing somewhere, often times you have to start nearly from scratch. I've found that to be true when working with engineers using different types of software claiming, "Oh, that's not how I built it. I'll have to redo the whole thing." 

I do agree, that this type of model can be quite advantageous, but often enough it isn't very efficient because one little mistake in the chain can exponentially cause more work. If you don't make mistakes, then sure. I make mistakes though.

That being said, I'm still trying. I'm just having troubles finding the right resources to solve the problems I'm encountering.

So now I'm trying to find something showing how this is supposed to work. It seems crazy that it's so difficult to figure out how it's supposed to work, keeping things components, and just using one component's definition to create a cut from another. Of course, I'd also like a slight offset as well, but that also shouldn't be difficult. 

[HughesTooling]

Here's a link to the help on Project.

Mark

[Anonymous]

So that's a great start, sure. That shows me where the button is, and shows me the most basic way to use it. 

This gets Extremely frustrating when you're trying to do something slightly more complex, because I can't find Anything addressing what I'm trying to do.

I have an knife blade which was modeled as it's own part. It is being referenced since that's a part that won't change. It's an actual part that exists, and it was modeled as such. So the model won't be changing.

Now I'd like to sink that blade into a piece of plastic, 3d printed of course. And since 3d printers have some slop to them, I'd like to offset that sketch by -.01, which could be done a few ways, sure. 

It won't let me project from the sketch. I have to pick edges from the geometry, and it isn't connecting the edges either, presumably because it's referencing the projected silhouette. So if I offset the curves, they don't connect. I'd have to create extensions on each end, or connect them in some other way. 

Then, to make matters worse, it doesn't reference the position in my current assembly, and it doesn't let move the lines at all. It referenced the object at the position at that time only. If I move it, nothing happens. 

So I think I'm at a bit of a stand still here. Coworkers don't help much because they use different software, and they just say, "well in my software I just do......" and their suggestion doesn't seem to work in Fusion. 

[Anonymous]

The real problem I had was joints don't orient well on objects that come to a point, like the tip of a knife does. So there are some tricks there needed in order to accomplish the correct orientation.

For projecting, you can't project one sketch into another. I haven't tested what happens if you simply copy and paste, but it only projects from a surface. And those curves can be used directly, or you have to build referencing to them. I wanted to offset the entire thing, but guess what, they aren't connected! Instead I decided to just extrude, then instead of offsetting the curves, which are actually a pain in the butt to select in order to extrude from anyway, I just pushed the surfaces on the extrude. Same result, different method.

The projection is also only "live" for the one captured position. Either the object needs to be 100% constrained with joints into one position, or you need the "capture position" to happen just prior to the projection. I was expecting that if you moved the object, to have the projection move with it, which would have worked if I was driving that with numbers prior to the projection. This particular example was just extremely difficult to orient properly. 

in order to orient a joint of an object by it's point, it's best to create some additional data as a "helper" object. Software doesn't really know the original angle of a point. Although, I would expect it to look at the surface prior to trimming, but I would be wrong.

[HughesTooling]

You should be able to project sketch elements, i don't know why you're having trouble with that. I've recorded a short screencast to show projecting a sketch and how to have it's position update by rolling the timeline back to before the sketch was made. First I show what you're probably seeing when you move a component after making the sketch, it doesn't move\update to the new position. 

For the problem of adding a joint to a point where there's no obvious snap point, take a look at adding a joint origins.

http://help.autodesk.com/view/NINVFUS/ENU/?guid=GUID-D1A77DB8-8E42-4BEA-82DA-F51B39635DC0

Mark