Overall Process

[Anonymous]

The overall process I have been trying to use is as follows:

1.  New drawing, rename.

2.  Create First Component.

3.  Make First Component Active.

4.  Create Sketches and Bodies within First Component.

5. Create Second Component

6.  Make Second Component Active

7.  Create Sketches and Bodies within Second Component

8.  Make main Drawing Active.

9.  Create Joints within Main Drawing.

I've attached a drawing which follows that procedure.  Is that the proper procedure so far?

[TrippyLighting]

Yep. That's spot on.

It's a model, though, not a drawing. It can be very confusion for people like me that have decades of experience and are used to the teminology when new users request help with drawings, because thead sends us totally down the wrong path 😉

[fulcrumusa]

I used to mistakenly do all my work in the main drawing when starting a new design. However, I recently learned that your flow is much better. In fact, the comments that I received on this forum implied that flow that you are using is how drawings were meant to be done in Fusion360.

In any case, using a flow very, very similar to yours has produced much better results for me. Here is the thread where I learn this valuable lesson (for a reference): Modeling multiple bodies in one design

[macmanpb]

Hi Cffellows,

this is exact the same workflow that i use to create good timeline models. 

[HughesTooling]

The only other point to consider is what you do if you want to add to component1. You could just activate it and carry on adding features but they will be added to the end of the document timeline. Here's a simple example I've added a fillet to component1, the fillet feature shows up after the features that make component2.

This doesn't really matter but you can drag the fillet back along the timeline to keep things more ordered or you could drag the timeline pointer back before adding the fillet. This will not work if you need a reference from something latter in the timeline though. With the help of Groups in the timeline you can keep the timeline nice and short, here's an example.

Mark.

[macmanpb]

Hi HughesTooling,

yes that's right, but if you activate component1 after you add the fillet feature, only the features of component1 are listed in the timeline, that also includes the fillet.

[HughesTooling]

Yes but in the document timeline it will be at the end so you can't use Group to shorten the time line and keep all the features in one group.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the tip Mark. I didn't realize I could make groups in the timeline. This will make long timelines much more manageable.

[HughesTooling]

One more tip with Groups. There is no way to add a feature to a group, what you have to do is right click the group in the timeline and select delete and on the dialog leave it on Delete group and expand its contents then regroup with the new features.

Mark

[TrippyLighting]

The first and foremost thing that makes timelines manageable, however is to:

Create a component and activate it.

Grouping helps keeping similar things together, e.g a complicated feature that consists of several operations.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, all, for the feedback and positive comments.  I'm still a little confused about nested components.  I've been using nested components to keep like or related items together.  I'm assuming this is what you folks mean by groups?  A group is a component which has sub-components?

Another area I'm fuzzy on is the data panel to the left of the screen.  I can save multiply drawings (models?) under the same name?  Can anybody tell me the philosophy behind that?

Thanks...

Chuck

[HughesTooling]

A group just contains several features in the timeline allowing you to collapse all the features down to one Group Feature.

Highlight all the features of a component and right click the time line and select create group.

After you've created the group it will look like this. To expand just click the +.

A component with sub components I would call a sub assembly.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Thanks.  One more question... I'm assuming when you create a joint, you would activate the closest level component when contains both components of the joint?  Or does it matter.