Using Joint Origin to define an offset joint. Help?

[Anonymous]

There's got to be a simple solution this, but I've yet to find it. Reference the picture I've attached:

I basically just want to position that little peg that's free-floating underneith the shelf above it and against the pegboard on the left offset about 0.25" back. Normally in Solidworks, I would just mate the left edge of the peg with the right edge of the pegboard, the top of the peg with the bottom of the shelf, and offset the front face from the front of the pegboard by 0.25". I can't figure out how to do that with joints. Closest I can think of is to mate the top corner of the peg to the bottom corner of the shelf, but the shelf isn't flush to the pegboard whereas I want the peg to be flush to the pegboard and flush to the underside of the shelf. I thought I could define a joint location, but as the picture shows, I can't seem to select anything to snap to. I've seen other pictures that have X,Y, and Z distances in the joint origin window, but I can't seem to get those to pop up.

Similarly, I need to align these two towers: (just to clarify, to not have the process come to a stop, I just made the pegs mentioned above flush so I could move on with the model)

at about 45 degrees to the edge of the base and have them sit flush on top of the base offset by some distance from the corner, about as pictured but flush to the top of the base. I also can't figure out how to do this with joints. It needs to be a rigid joint, but offset at both an angle and a distance.

In general, I feel like I'm having to think way to hard to come up with a way to join components without mates. I would like to get these issues figured out, because this is just modeling what I've alreayd built. My next step will be to take this design and change the dimensions and some parts of the design to increase the overall capacity without increasing the stand's footprint. That will required a lot of arbitrary component placement that Fusion 360 doesn't seem to be able to do, at least to my limited knowledge. In Solidworks with the mates it's all easy to do, but without them... Anyone have any ideas? I'm at a loss. I'd greatly appreaciate any assistance I can get.

[martin.zatecka · Accepted solution]

Hello,

I prepared two videos how to create joint with offset and how to mate in angle. I hope it answers your questions.

please let me know, if you need something else.

regards

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

The reason you cannot add a joint origin is that a joint origin has to be part of a component.

Your design incudes exclusively linked/external components. Linking components is really not very often needed when working in Fusion 360 because it does not make a difference betwen part and assembly files.

You have two ways to get this to work.

1. You open the external component  that makes up the base and add the joint origin there. Then you'll have to save it and update the main assembly drawing.
2. You break all the links to the external components and then add the joint origin to the base component without having to go back and forth between the external/linked components and the main assembly file.

I very rarely keep component's linked. 

[Anonymous]

Martin,

Thanks. The first video explains what I'm generally trying to do quite well. While not nearly as intuitive as the mates in solidworks are, it seems like it should fulfill what I need in regards to offsetting things. The second video isn't quite what I meant by my second picture. I don't need it connected at a point. The towers will be sitting on top of the base crossing 2 sides of the base at 45 degree angles, pretty much as pictured. I didn't realize that the joint origin had to be placed on the individual component's file, not in the assembly view, so I may be able to work out something to do that now that I know how to do the origins.

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Trippy,

Thank you. Didn't realize that. So you recommend building all components in one file?

[TrippyLighting]

For this kind of desing, yes. In the forst post in this this thread I've provided the main some main reasons for working with linked components and some curent limitations when working with them

Also, please make sure when working with components to use Fusion 360 R.U.L.E #1. Before doing anything, create a component and make sure it's activated.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the idea. I'll try that out when I build the other two towers.

[gmdimarzio88]

Will we ever have the option to add a joint origin to a linked part in a separate assembly model? Having to add it to the component, or having to break the link seems counterintuitive.