What is best practise when using the "combine" function?

[alexanimashaun]

Hello

I'm loving fusion 360 and the forum community is incredibly helpful!

What's the best practise when combining bodies? If I design separate components, then combine them, I end up joining their timelines. Then when I go back and edit a component's part history, it often muddles things up. Any suggestions on best practise?

If I have body A in component A, then body B in component B I can create both bodies in both components to make any combine function independent and avoid timeline confusion. However then I have to make the same changes to both instances of body A and B. 

I try to keep my designs clean by activating the component and only editing while activated. The combine function seems the one unavoidable exception to that rule.

Thanks for reading!

Alex

[jhackney1972]

In my Screencast, I create two components each containing bodies.  (As I said in the video, I did not take the time to constrain or dimension them).  I then combine the bodies between the two components.  As you notice in the timeline, the independent body sketches and actual bodies are still available for edit.  The only change is in the browser where Component 1, which was the base body for the combine, now contains the bodies of Component 2.  If you are not using a timeline well things are very different.

I do not see any issues.  Please make a Screencast to point out your concerns

[alexanimashaun]

Hi John

Thanks for taking the time to create that. I'm about to create a large (for me) assembly with lots of intersecting bodies. I'll work on that for a few hours and see if I can replicate it and take a screencast. It was more about working on the combined bodies, then going back and editing the originals and having issues with future features that had dependencies that didn't propagate all the way through. 

Thanks!

[alexanimashaun]

Hi John

I don't have a screen cast, but I have a use case. When you cut a body into pieces using combine you can end up creating two or more bodies in a component that originally had only one body. If you do this a few times you can confuse downstream features that used to act on body 1, but now the referenced surface is part of body 2. 

Does that make sense?

[TrippyLighting]

Yes, that does make sense. What you are describing is just a natural side effect of that particular workflow.

[g-andresen]

Hi,

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@alexanimashaun wrote:

I don't have a screen cast, ....

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then install it and you´ll optimize the quality of your questions.

günther