Using multiple instances of a component in an assembly without copying

[Julie_7]

I am working with a design that I downloaded. It has many hardware items (nuts and bolts) that are the same. The list of components in the design is very long because there is a component for every instance of a given piece of hardware. This doesn't seem to be the correct way to do this. Imagine if my assembly had 40 M5x20 cap screws. Having a separate component for each one would made the design unusable.

I would like to know how to create a component in my design, and then use multiple instances of it in my assembly without duplicating the component. Can someone help me?

[jhackney1972]

What you are asking is not possible.  An assembly is a grouping of components so without adding components you cannot build an assembly.  You can so some organization to manage your components and therefore consolidate you Browser but you have to add components in some fashion, copy, insert, derive to create the assembly.

In the assembly below, it may be small, but still I consolidate my fasteners into one sub-assembly to organize my Browser.

[TrippyLighting]

How do you know that the 40 screws aren't instances but copies ?

[jeff_strater]

how are you creating the 40 identical fasteners?  Are you possibly using McMaster-Carr?  I think by default, if you go back to that UI for each fastener, you will get 40 copies (different components).  However, if you create just one fastener for that type, and use Copy/Paste to duplicate the fastener in Fusion, you do get instances, not separate components.  You can tell if this is the case if you see the ":n" suffix on the components.  For instance, in this image:

The first 3 are instances of the M5x20 component (:1, :2, :3), and should behave as you expect in a BOM.  However, the next two components are separate components as they both have the :1 suffix, and a different component name.

[Julie_7]

Your browser shows something similar to what I am asking about. It seems that your solution is to put the fasteners in a component containing them. I have some questions about that, but first:

I am working on a design that was given to me. It is not organized very well and only a few components/assemblies are hierarchical. At the root level there are at least four dozen fasteners spread around and finding the actual components that are a significant part of the design is hard. Hiding and showing is also very hard.

I think there are really what I would consider a component, which according to the definition of a component has an origin and design details, which included a timeline, and what I tend to call parts. Parts are just things like fasteners, where the design is not included, or instances of a component where the design does not need to be repeated. I don't see a point to showing "parts" in the browser.

Back to your example.

I am a novice with Fusion 360 and most of my previous work has been with my own designs that don't have over 50 components. I am trying to both understand the design given to me, and learn how to create a large design in an efficient way using assemblies and sub-assemblies to all showing and hiding in useful ways. I would appreciate links to any references that might be useful to me.

Regarding your grouping all fasteners into a "component", are those components inside allowed to be used as components in a different assembly? From a conceptual perspective, nesting individual fasteners in an assembly doesn't really make sense to me, as your Fasteners assembly is not really an assembly, or a component, but rather just a convenient grouping.

Do real designs use component/assemblies for grouping convenience when those items are not really going to be assembled as part of the design?

I am sure the design that I am trying to use is causing much of my confusion as I am trying to view the parts I need to see in order to both 3D print parts and to understand how to construct the final assembled design in the physical world.

thanks for your help.

[Julie_7]

Another related question that I have is about when to copy assemblies. In the design I am using there are many components duplicated at the top level of the browser and then these are assembled into other "duplicate" assemblies.

Would I be correct in assuming that it would be better to completely compose a complicated assembly and then duplicate it as a whole? It seems like that would get rid of dozens of top level components and also reduce the size of the timeline.