mirroring constrained geometry across different sketches

[AagAag]

I have finally made this perfectly and fully constrained "tile" with joints. The idea is to 3D-print a bunch of such tiles, such that they can strongly and permanently joined together. You may discern that the receptacles have some clearance compared to the plugs.

Now, having drafted two sides with all relevant constraints, I would like to mirror the entire geometry to the other two sides. I cannot figure out a way to do that. At the very least, I would like to mirror the sketches. In an ideal world, I would also mirror the bodies, but note that they would have to be turned around - because otherwise a plug would encounter another plug rather than a receptacle when joining the tiles.

Any advice would be enormously appreciated!

[TrippyLighting]

Mirror the extrude features in the timeline. In the mirror dialogue you can change the pattern type to feature and then select the features in the timeline

[AagAag]

Dear Chris

A million thanks - I am grateful and impressed that you have spent your Sunday evening producing this extremely clear and instructive video. Not only did you resolve my specific problem, but I have learned something new. When you teach a man how to fish, he will never be hungry again!

[AagAag]

I have a follow-up question. I have now generated some walls (see pic), and would like to apply the same pattern of plugs.

However, the vertical wall is now a separate component called "vertical corner", which is probably a bad design decision. I have done that because the three bottom tiles are parametrically linked, and therefore anything I draw on one tile will propagate onto the others. 

What would you advise me to do?

• I could unlink the tiles from each other ("paste new", I suppose) but that is logically incorrect since they should all simultaneously update their dimensions if I decide e.g. to make them thinner or thicker.
• If I however stick with the vertical walls as a separate component, I cannot simply do a circular feature pattern from the "tile" component onto the "vertical corner" component. Right? 
• Or (hopefully) there is a more elegant strategy that I haven't identified?

For any advice I would be most grateful. I have to say that I find this community to be amazingly supportive and friendly. Be assured that I'd be happy to reciprocate (I am however a medical doctor by profession).

[chrisplyler]

You have made two linked copies of your base tile by using the Paste command. You could make ANOTHER copy of it using Paste New, and then modify that one.

Watch this. I make the wall Components from scratch. The bit I want you to see is that I can use the sketches from the original base tile to create some of the features of the wall tiles.

[AagAag]

Grazie mille, Chris, that's great. However, it is not exactly what I had in mind (my mistake, I explained myself too vaguely).

The idea is to create several versions of standard tiles, flat, one-walled, and two-walled for corners, so that I'd have all the elements to 3D-print boxes of any size. There should be only 6 primary variables, whereas everything else should be driven parametrically:

- length of tile

- width of tile

- height of wall

- thickness of tile (homogeneous x/y/z)

- clearance of plugs.

As you probably surmise, this is primarily an exercise by which I am trying to learn how to do strict parametric drafting. But eventually it should also give rise to something useful (a box for a tissue autosampler which I call the "iMice"). 

One current difficulty is that I had badly planned things, hence now the sketches related to the tiles do not live in the tile component, but in the upper "echelon". I do not know whether I can remedy without having to start everything from scratch. Here is the public link to the work-in-progress https://a360.co/2BqWasq 

I have given a different color to the "pasted-new" tile which is unlinked. I could draw the walls (perhaps simply by mirroring them), and then use dimensional references to the 6 variables above, to link up everything correctly, I guess.

[chrisplyler]

Oh okay. Well, you've already made three Paste copies of your base tile Component. Just make a separate Paste New copy of it that WON'T be linked to the original, and then modify that one to add the wall(s) as desired. Repeat as necessary to make each different configuration.

[TrippyLighting]

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@AagAag wrote:

As you probably surmise, this is primarily an exercise by which I am trying to learn how to do strict parametric drafting.

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Well, yes we've gathered that much. The question is who is actually exercising. I don't see you producing much other than text while @chrisplyler is spoon feeding you with the patience of an ox. 

If you don't really start experimenting seriously yourself you can watch other people's screencast until the cows come home but you still won't be able to complete these simple projects.

[AagAag]

Dear Mr Doering

I apologize for having irritated you. It was certainly not my intention. I kindly suggest that you ignore my posts in the future.

best wishes

AA

[TrippyLighting]

Now I have to apologize for being irritated!

Allow me to back up my apology by doing some good ...

I downloaded one of your designs. And I am looking at the first sketch, which is almost fully defined.

It contains one spurious line that is not constrained to anything. I am sure that was my accident, but I am going to take the opportunity to warn of overlapping lines. Avoid these as good as possible.

Imagine you'd have to sketch everything in ink on soft paper. You never want to go over the same line twice.

That is also a good practice when sketching in CAD.

The second think I am noting is that you sketched the profile offset by a fixed distance of 35mm. Form a "standard" reusable part I would keep the origin of the design located at the center or corner of a face, vertex or body. This will often help not to have to create auxiliary construction planes for mirroring, or axis for patterning.

Also, if parts are symmetric it is usually a good idea to have the symmetries align with origin axis or planes.

You mention 6 parameters in another post. I believe you need another 2  parameters for the 3D rating clearance.

I am assuming these will likely be printing flat on the printer bed with a FDM printer. The tolerance in the Z axis is usually smaller than in the XY plane, hence 2 parameters.

In your sketch that would mean that you cannot use a uniform offset to allow for that clearance.

Another question you asked was in relation to sketches not being located in the component they should actually be in.

This can be done, but in your case you are too far along in the design and relationship exist between some entities in the component and outside of the component that prevent this from working. Unfortunately there are currently no tools available to untangle this.

It might not be a problem. You could simply continue in this design and use it only to great a small library of the tile variants you want to create. Then you can use a feature that was only recently introduced to Fusion 360. The Derive command allows to derive components from one design into another. 

So you can derive one or more tile variants out of that small library into a new design and use it to build something with these tiles. the advantage this hs is that if you need to change the printer clearance, you change the user parameter for that in the library file and the designs with all the derived tiles will update to match.

[chrisplyler]

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@TrippyLighting wrote:

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If you don't really start experimenting seriously yourself you can watch other people's screencast until the cows come home but you still won't be able to complete these simple projects.

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That's true of a lot of screencasts. But MINE are special. They magically enable people to become instant experts.

PS - Do oxen have a lot of patience? Do cows have more? Is that why they take their sweet time coming home?

[chrisplyler]

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@adriano.aguzzi wrote:

One current difficulty is that I had badly planned things, hence now the sketches related to the tiles do not live in the tile component, but in the upper "echelon". I do not know whether I can remedy without having to start everything from scratch.

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I find that there are sometimes logical reasons to create a sketch at the root level instead of within a lower-level Component.

For example: maybe you want to set up a base sketch and four side sketches with the male and female squares, such that you can make several components from that "framework" without making more sketches. The sketches are common to all the Components you want to make. Your project lends itself quite nicely to this workflow.

The downside is that if you want to save each Component type out as it's own file, they aren't going to have the sketches included with them.

[TrippyLighting]

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@chrisplyler wrote:

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The downside is that if you want to save each Component type out as it's own file, they aren't going to have the sketches included with them.

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True, but with the new derive component functionality you can keep a library file with just the tile variants and then derive these into your those design where you use the tiles to build something.

If there are not too many tile variants in that library this should work nicely..

[chrisplyler]

If you DO think this approach is suitable for your project...

Since each individual tile type, when saved out as its own file will not have any sketches in that file, if you want to make changes, you will have to come back into this "master tile factory" file, make the changes, and save out new versions of the individual pieces.

Check this out:

[AagAag]

Thank you Peter, this is great advice! I will explore the Derive command. It sounds like a great new feature!

[AagAag]

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@chrisplyler wrote:
For example: maybe you want to set up a base sketch and four side sketches with the male and female squares, such that you can make several components from that "framework" without making more sketches. The sketches are common to all the Components you want to make. Your project lends itself quite nicely to this workflow.

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You, Sir, are a genius! It did not cross my mind that I could (1) draw all the sketches with all necessary constraints and definition, (2) extrude one part using a subset of the sketches, (3) move it out of the way, (4) extrude the next part, and repeat from step #2.

This is a really powerful way to do "combinatorial chemistry" (which is more familiar to me than technical drawings...). Thank you both, Peter and Chris, for these eye-openers! 

[chrisplyler]

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@AagAag wrote:

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You, Sir, are a genius!

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That's awfully kind, thanks. You don't even have to move them out of the way and clutter up your time line with unnecessary Capture Position events. You can just turn each finished Component's light bulb off before you start the next. I only did it that way for clarity in the video.

[AagAag]

I watched the autodesk podcast about Derive. If I understand correctly, it is a "insert on steroids" that allows for selecting any partial tree from a design and insert it into another design. Right? It does seem very useful.

[TrippyLighting]

Correct!

The reason I mentioned "small" library is that if you update a library file that contains a number of your tiles, even if you only modify a single design, all assemblies that any component/tile was derived into from that library file will also have to be updated.

So if you library grows beyond an hand full of parts you'll have assemblies show the need to be updated when there is really no change. Fusion 360 keeps versions only of complete files, not the component in that file.

Thus I would not use the derive functionality for a growing and constantly changing library of re-usable parts.