split body into defined pieces

[Anonymous]

I am trying to split a body into defined pieces, but I cannot figure out how. I see split body but it makes be choose a face or something, and I want to split it by selecting faces, or drawing a line, or something. I have designed something to be 3d printed, but in order for this to fit on my 3d printer, I'll need to break it into pieces. I would like to detach the hollow rectangle from my model so I can then split the platform in half and end up with 3 unique prints that will fit my print bed. I will attach my file.

[Anonymous]

I think I may have figured it out. I went back to the feature extrude and just changed them to new body. Is that a good thing to do? However I got some pretty gnarly errors on the 7th item in history, a fillet. I haven't been able to figure out how to fix.

[TrippyLighting]

You can do it that way too, but sooner or later you'll need to use the technique I am showing in the screen recording that is currently uploading, so hold tight ....

In general what you've tried should work, but there might be a bug in the code. Whenever this does not work the trick is to create yourself some surface geometry in the patch environment to trim off pieces of geometry.

[Anonymous]

I ended up splitting it all up and cutting some holes for dowels.. I'm not en engineer so I'm hoping this should be adequate, its just a plastic stand that will hold a phone (at least that's the goal)

[etfrench]

Screencast is slow today:  Here's a link.

Selecting the face should have worked.  You can also use any plane to split a body.

[davebYYPCU]

Depending which way you look at it, you have two left sides on the build plate, maybe one of each will save some grief.

[Anonymous]

ah shoot haha. Yeah you're right. In my model I actually have 2 different sides but i only imported to of the same half. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Anonymous]

Thanks a ton. I learned some stuff - I've never even been in that patch panel before. But what you did at the end gave me an idea, how you kind of had a cutout for it. I'm thinking that instead of dowels and glue joints to attach these pieces, what If I try to create some sort of sliding dovetail for the platform, and something similar to lock the cube. Im not sure how I would go about creating that sort of geometry to split like you did in the video though

[Anonymous]

EDIT: This can be deleted - I figured it out!

[TrippyLighting]

Ha, that's music to my ears!

[Anonymous]

Thank you. .. Side note, can you change the angle of a line after its drawn? I dont see a wait to edit that

[TrippyLighting]

Yes. While you are sketching, Fusion 360 automatically tries to infer constraints such as the horizontal/vertical constraint or the perpendicularity constraint and others. 

If a particular constraint does not fit your needs, you can delete it and replace it with another constraint, or a dimension.

E.g if you have a horizontal line with a horizontal/vertical constraint and a vertical line with a horizontal/vertical constraint, you can delete that constraint on the vertical line and then dimension the angle between the two lines.

In time you'll learn to sketch in a way that the auto inferred constraints don't get in your way, but will help you sketch faster.

[lichtzeichenanlage]

@TrippyLighting: It's always nice to see professionals work. Great video. I liked the 2nd approach a bit more. For more complex cutouts I would thicken the cutout-tool for the clearance so I don't have to select the faces manually afterwards. 

@Anonymous: Another approach might be, to have the dimensions of your printer in mind during the design phase and just designing a couple of parts. Because of the fillet this might be not suitable for your current problem but IMHO it is worth mentioning. BTW: Sometimes fillets are hard to print and chamfers are considerable, too.

[TrippyLighting]

@lichtzeichenanlage thickening the cutting tool did not even occur to me. Yes that would make things efficient.

In a larger design with more components I wold probably still use the face offset method and bundle all the offsets for clearances at the end of the timeline. That way they are all in on place.

[lichtzeichenanlage]

@TrippyLighting: Having everything at one place is a god reason. Not doing it to much in the design might add some flexibility, too. Perhaps sketches would get simpler... Good point.