Simple way to scale STL's

[philwmcintosh]

I work with Fusion and often output to machining, 3D printing, laser, etc. All the 3d prints I've ever done were full size but now I'm working on a physically large assembly with around 20 components and figure that the way ahead with regard to design is to 3D Print the internal parts to make a mock up but due to their size I'll have to scale them down to about 1/4 or 1/3 scale. Obviously it's using joints for component positioning.

(1) My question is: Is there a way in Fusion to somehow scale down the parts at the "convert to mesh" stage. I feel there isn't but just asking in case there is a method.

(2) The alternative is to make a copy of the file then scale it correctly for my 3D prints however 1 file would be better than having to keep track of 2 (files).

(3) Now that I think about it "Derive" might be my best bet however I don't remember having seen Derive in Fusion being used in this way. (i.e. a master file with say 20 components and a derived file (copy of the master file) but scaled. It seems that normally derived in Fusion is for when you bring in one component that is derived from another.

Any suggestions?

[HughesTooling · Accepted solution]

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@philwmcintosh wrote:

(3) Now that I think about it "Derive" might be my best bet however I don't remember having seen Derive in Fusion being used in this way. (i.e. a master file with say 20 components and a derived file (copy of the master file) but scaled. It seems that normally derived in Fusion is for when you bring in one component that is derived from another.

Any suggestions?

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I use Derive in a similar way to what you describe but for manufacture. I've found trying to design an assembly and all it machining in one file is too much for Fusion and it slows too much. So what I do is just derive out all the components I'm going to machine and keep all the manufacturing info in the derived file, sometimes even need to use more than one derived file.

Another option is could you use Fusion's Additive workspace and create your 3d prints in Fusion? In the manufacture workspace you have an option to create Manufacturing Model. This creates a copy of your design just for manufacture you can modify independent of what's in the design workspace. This might work for you but I found I ran into performance problems pretty quickly but this would depend on the amount of data in your design.

Mark

[philwmcintosh · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the reply Mark. I just did a test with a simple 3 component test file and its derived copy then scaled it to 25% in the derived file. I then made changes to the master file and everything comes through on all the components of the derived file including positioning, changes, etc. so that solves my 3D Printing problem.

I read with interest your use of derived for manufacturing and it sounds like a great idea for machining. I can't wait to try it because as you say, "all that machining (and the model itself) in one file is too much for Fusion and it slows too much." I totally agree and thanks for the help.