Weld Tool Proof of Concept

[PhilProcarioJr]

So I'm working on a weld tool (Proof of concept) for Fusion 360 and I was wondering if there is any interest in this from the community.

Here is a render (Keep in mind I only spent 3-5 min making this.

If you are interested:

What types of welds would you want?

Do you want materials for each?

What settings would you like to see in the tool? IE Width, Concave, Convex, Penetration, Bead pool separation....

Any and all feedback welcome.

[neljoshua]

This would definitely be of use to me.

What types of welds would you want?

Vee, butt, lap, tee, and corner would cover it for me.  I know there are others, but I think that would cover everything we do.

Do you want materials for each?

I am not sure what you mean by this, but I would like to have all of the material options currently in Fusion.  It would be nice to pick the base material(s) or a different one--like for brazing.  We currently do quite a bit of plastic welding, so I hope that this would not be limited to metal materials within Fusion.

What settings would you like to see in the tool? IE Width, Concave, Convex, Penetration, Bead pool separation...

All of these would be helpful.  It would also be good to have the option to lay more than one pass.

If this is implemented, it would also be great to see weldment drawings.

[MattPerez314]

That's pretty cool! When you say Weld Tool what is the scope of this? Just a graphical representation of the welds? Or are you trying to make more of a weld suite of tools? Either way great work.

[PhilProcarioJr]

@MattPerez314

Thanks,

I have been looking for a project to work on that will allow me to dive into the API of Fusion. Welds just seemed like something useful and fun to work on all in one. I do engineering and design work for a forge for my day job and use Solidworks there. I was never happy with the weld tools in Solidworks. At home I decided to start using Fusion 360 and honestly I really enjoy working with it. Fusion has very unique tools that allow the creation of some really nice welds both from a graphic and accurate stand point. Things that are just not even possible in Solidworks. This is actually a really big project so at this point I'm not sure how far I will be able to take it. Right now it would be a graphical thing for product shots and a more realistic visual appeal, but I hope it would evolve into something more then that over time or allow me to work with Fusion devs to get tools into Fusion that no other CAD app has. What I would like to do is document my steps to create welds in Fusion right now, showing a work flow to add to the idea station. Then in my spare time work with the API to develop my own tools because I'm sure this would be way down the road for the Fusion dev team even if they were interested in the idea. So depending on my time and obstacles I run into I hope to end with a suite of tools to cover all of it.

[MattPerez314]

Great Stuff Phil! Yeah I use Solidworks weldments, even taught a few classes at SWW on it. Its great for its structural members, end caps and how it can handle miter joints, but the last few years they have gone a different way with actual weld beads. Of course you can make a fillet but in the past you could actually convert the weld to a solid body and easily add its mass properties. This current release makes it tough to do things like get the Mass of a welded assembly into a drawing. I don't understand cause you can use "Mass Properties" and get the mass of the assembly and weld but there is a disconnect.

For your project i think being able to define the weld size and being able to get the weld length and total mass would be a great start. It would go a long way if we had custom properties to populate but maybe thats a future thing.

I have done some API work in Solidworks and i have been learning Python to do some stuff in Fusion. What is your chosen language for this project?

[PhilProcarioJr]

SWW...I'm surprised we havn't run into each other in the past..lol

I like weldments in solidworks and your right there is a disconnect right now....I have been uncertain about their direction With Solidworks for a while now and 2016 is crash happy....

Just adding a fillet to represent a weld (especially for a product rendering just doesn't cut it IMHO).

I'm going to use python, I have done a lot of python scripting in Lightwave so I'm hoping it will go smoothly.

[burnandreturn]

Being able to add a weld bead with all criteria would be great for simulation testing.  The ability to simulation test multiple pass welds with filler material criteria to test what is enough weld for the job of the part.   Yes that would be a great benifit I think.

[Anonymous]

Any news on this? We are looking for precisly this.

Welding that looks like welding would be really great to have in Fusion. I mean we can make threads now through the menu, a weld should be possible too 🙂

[PhilProcarioJr]

@Anonymous

Currently work on this is on hold as it creates a lot of overhead for Fusion and pushes you to the limits of what Fusion can handle very fast.

Until the software can handle more complex models and assemblies it's just not feasible at this time. 

I did however make a video on how to make actual welds in Fusion that show up in Drawings to.

[Anonymous]

@PhilProcarioJr

Wow, that looks impressive. But I am afraid it is a bit too much work if there are many different welds in a project.

Thanks for you answer, it makes it clear why there still is no weld functionality in Fusion.

[PhilProcarioJr]

@Anonymous

Actually like I told another user, if you create some basic welds you can save those to a library and just drag and drop them into any scene. I have made a bunch of different welds and use this technique all the time. The initial types of welds took a few hours to create and a few seconds to use in any scene.

[ryanthomas0716]

Is this available anywhere? I frequently design with sheet metal and would love to be able to model welds for product rendering.