Weight of the visible components in my assembly
It should be relatively easy...
- First set your selection filter to Components. (In this image, I have placed all the best select tools (my opinion) on the toolbar for easy use.)
- Next select the components you wish to measure mass with.
- Right click and pick Properties.
You should see the properties of only the components you have selected.
Good luck!
Phil Eichmiller
Software Engineer
Quality Assurance
Autodesk, Inc.
Hi Olin -
I know from some email correspondence that you are still having difficulty with this issue - but I thought I might put my response here so anyone else having a similar issue could also benefit in the future....
Phil's response is "correct".... what I mean to say is that at Autodesk, we assume in general that any single volume, unconnected to other volumes of material, will be a component. If several independent volumes are conceptually part of a larger unit, then this entity is a subassembly, which is itself made of several components. It is of course possible to build things in ways that are different to this, and sometimes people do, but at Autodesk we (try to) stick to a way of working that is consistent with professional manufacturing situations.
A good way of thinking of this is to picture how someone, who does not know your model, might be asked to assemble it in a professional company. In almost all such situations, that person would get a parts list as part of their information and they would run over to big set of drawers or something similar where all the parts they are supposed to collect are stored. (be creative here - your company may not actually have drawers. 🙂 ) Every time you reach into a drawer to grab something, you are getting a component or a subassembly. I the case of a subassembly, somebody else has already done the same as you for that assembly prior.
Each component, or subassembly is unique. There might be two versions of a bracket, sure - but these will have different part numbers and a different drawer. (No Bracket 4711, Green and Bracket 4711, Red in the same drawer....at least not in a "normal" professional manufacturing outfit.) The same is usually true of subassemblies as well. While there may be two versions of a particular one - each of these will have its own part number. The parts it is made of will be mostly the same, sure, but the differing parts - according to our system, will have different numbers. (and will come from different drawers.)
So that is the background. Now - what can we do about your situation?
Being thorough: if you have bodies which you have not turned into components at the end of your modelling - your first thought should be "why?" If someone is going to have to grab them out of a drawer to assemble your construction, then they should be a component. if they are not a component - they will not turn up on a parts list!
If someone is not going to be grabbing them out of a drawer - then they aren't really part of the assembly. This is often the case when you have a reference geometry that you use to build your assembly, but that is not really part of the assembly you are building - like the lorry in your example.
In this case - I would recommend using the command "remove" to remove the bodies that no one is grabbing out of the drawer. This command can be used at the very end of your timeline, and is not the same as "delete"....it puts the "removal" as a step in the timeline, and if, later, you want to have those bodies back...or if you have already referenced them in your design, it will be no problem.
If the bodies are being grabbed out of the drawer, but not alone, then they still need to be a component, but they should also be organized into a subassembly....because someone is putting them together before you.
I know this is super-long, but I wanted to describe fully how we tend to approach stuff like this. It helps to make sense of how the software works.
Now - I am sure that there are companies who do something different, and there may be good reasons to do so, but we all have to choose our path, and this seems to us to be the most common way of looking at things. You may find alternative ways to use Fusion 360....but in all likelihood, if you try and swim against the current, its going to be slow going.
Hope it helps you.
Mickey Wakefield
Fusion 360 Community Manager
Create a selection set with those components.
Select the selection set.
Right-click and select "Properties" from the menu.
Unfortunately, we still cannot change the units in the properties UI, so you'll have to set the Document Settings to an appropriate unit.
