Mirroring creates new parts, not duplicates

[mickingaamco]

When I mirror a part, and that part is an exact copy of the first part, except for its location, I expect that the BOM on a drawing would count 2 of that part. Instead, it counts one of the original part and one of the new (mirrored) part. 

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

Hi @mickingaamco,

This is an excellent question:  Why does Fusion create a separate component for mirror?  Mostly, because this reflects the reality of manufacturing components.  If you have a non-symmetric part, it's mirror is a separately-purchasable (or separately manufacturable) item.  I can't tell from your video whether your component is really symmetric with respect to the mirror plane or not.

If you do have symmetric items, and you just want a rotated orientation of the same component, I would not recommend using Mirror Components.  I would recommend just using copy/paste to create a new instance, then using Joints to orient the new instance so that it is rotated with respect to the original.

Jeff

[krithika.sundararajan]

Edit: Jeff beat me to it. But I think he explained it better. 🙂 Thanks, Jeff!

Hi mickingaamco,

I believe this is expected. Depending on the geometry, the mirror may not always be a duplicate of the original part. Consider the example below:

If the mirrored component is in fact a duplicate of the original in your case, you could perhaps Copy it instead and move to the expected location.

Hope that helps. Please let us know if you have any further questions.

Thanks,

Krithika

[mickingaamco]

I was afraid that would be the case. There are indeed times when the mirrored part is not the same as the original. In my case, it was the same. Also, the part is very difficult to move and place in the correct position because of the way it has circular cuts at an angle at each end. There is no good way to make a joint that mates the part to the cross member surface. In fact, to make the original part I had to place a tube at the proper angle but longer than required. Then I used a sketch plane perpendicular to the cross member and cut through those angled tubes.

Perhaps a suggestion for Fusion. Why not make some kind of a move command that would mirror the position of a part only. Then I could copy and paste the part in its original position, and then just mirror/move the copy.

Mike

[catot]

In many cases where you want achieve a mirror orientation of identical components, you can use a circular pattern (remember to select Components for the pattern settings). If you don't have the origin axes in the correct location, just make additional construction geometry to get a new construction axis for the pattern in the right location. See simple example below. This can be very powerful.

[cem.yavuz]

Hi Catot,

Can you please tell me the most practical way to finish this basket design by symetrically patterning components from left to the right side? When we use create mirror command we can't see the same component counted as x2 on the Parts List (BOM), unlike it creates another mirrored part so this doesn't provide a solution. if we use Circular Pattern we can't position components on the right side as we wanted. So, I think Fusion360 has to solve this issue which is very commonly occured to industrial engineers who want to pattern symettrical copies of original component same like in this picture. Maybe they can call it "Symettrical Pattern" command 😉