Where are the constraints / mates ?

[Dan_Margulius]

Hello

Maybe i am missing something, but it is impossible to built mates in Fusion.

How can we work in an assembly without mates???

Moving parts and Joints it's not it. 

Thanks

Dan

[todd_sandercock]

Joints seem limiting when doing integration of existing parts. I want to be able to use mates to place an imported part parametrically and then draw my custom part around it. This doesn't seem possible currently

[frank]

I love designing on my Mac and having freedom to work from anywhere but I am dying for some easier way to place something in a somewhat arbitrary position...like you can with mates in Inventor. I know you are trying to stay away from that but in my case most of the time I don't have a joint so I spend most of my time trying to figure out how to assemble and very little time designing, this is very frustrating. Certainly it would be wise to combine the new methods of joints (which is great when you have joints to assemble with) and flush and mates.

Please help!!!

frank@moritzint.com

[promm]

@frank,

As you have heard from other members of the Autodesk team on this thread the Joint approach is different than the mates you mention in Inventor.  Can you send me an example of one the models that you are trying to work with?  I will be more that happy to walk you through the joint workflow and the advantages that it gives you.

Cheers,

Mike Prom

[frank]

Mike,

Thanks for your reply. I’ve attached a file for demo. I would love to see your approach to assembling these two parts.

There is an Ibeam and a stake pocket and I want the stake pocket mated to the underside of the top flange of the Ibeam and the back side of the stake pocket mated to web of the Ibeam. This would  place the stake pocket in the upper inside corner of the Ibeam.

I run into the most problems assembling pieces when there are round corners involved.

I look forward to your response.

Frank Moritz

[promm]

@frank,

Could you please attach a picture of the end result that you are looking for.  I am having a hard time understading what is the back side of the stake pocket.

Thank you,

Mike Prom

[frank]

[X]


Frank Moritz


[cid:image003.jpg@01D1373D.5642DBD0]



665 North Main Street
Mansfield, OH 44902

Phone: 419-526-5222 ext. 112
Fax: 419-526-9559

Web: moritzint.com

[brianrepp]

Hi Frank - it looks like you may have tried to attach an image via email and it didn't come through properly.  If you have time, could you try to post the image to your next post via the Web browser?

[fredsi]

frank,

Is this the general idea of what you are trying to do? (see attached .jpg). Just want to make sure I have the orientation right, though the exact location along the beam is probably wrong.

It was done with one joint, but using two joint origins. When locations for joints are not easily defined (such as when dealing with fillets that obscure sharp corners), using joint origins helps as they are easy to adjust to the correct location, prior to creating the actual joint.

Fred

[frank]

I have finally concluded that.

Could you guys develop the joint origin a little further to recognize where the exact corner would be if the fillet weren't there, or where the corner would be when a fillet is present? I run into this a lot when I design and it takes quite a bit more work to build assemblies when dealing with fillets when you have to remember what the radius is and offset the joint origin to place where the corner would be.

Thanks for your help.

[fredsi]

Fusion 360 development

Just to add to frank's comment.....for parts that are heavily chamfered/filleted, there are various ways to quickly add points in space that represent virtual sharp corners for adding joint origins. BUT, those points, whether created via the construct menu (3 intersecting planes, two edges, etc.) or as projected points in the sketch environment, do not associate with the part; so they will not participate in creating a joint (at least that is my experience so far),

Essentially one must create a joint origin on a part and them offset it to the proper location. This is doable, but is somewhat hindered by the limitations of the measure option when moving the joint origin around (unless you care to remember the radii or distances involved with every fillet/chamfer and enter them directly). In particular there seems to be no way to flip the sense of the X,Y, abd Z direction arrows when measuring an offset; thus you end up having to edit some dimensions to add a minus sign to offset the origin correctly.

The ideal solution would be, as frank alluded to, a way to place the joint origins at virtual sharp locaitons. Personally, I think the current optons suffice, but were I to be in his position of dealing with many instances of chamfered/filleted parts, those current options might get old real quick.

BTW, searched the ideastation, but found nothing that addressed this issue directly. Thanks.

Fred

[friesendrywall]

How about fixing the video links?

[neil]

This thread hasn't had any action for a while, thought I'd chime in.

I use and teach SW (and used to use Inventor) extensively for machine design.  One of the things I often need to do is have a wheel rolling on a track, like a v-roller on a v-beam (see openbuilds.com).

I posted a youtube video describing my problem.  As currently defined you simply can't do this without serious gymnastics.  It's trivial in SW and Inventor.  Please go to the video to see the "solutions" some experts in F360 posted.

The notion that Joints makes Mates not needed is not borne out by my experience -- 30 plus years in machine design.  Ok I'm an old fart.  But really, are you solving a problem or just making new ones?

Here's the video:

Neil

[araugh]

That's interesting Neil, would you mind sharing the base files for folks to work with on this example?

[Anonymous]

Does this solve your mates issue? at least the rolling part of it?

[Anonymous]

Screencast tool is acting.

Here it is.

Nevermind, I realized that we're speaking rollers here.

The solution that comes yo mind is to have a joint origin between two faces in the rails, then offset the wheel to have it rest on the track.

[neil]

Would you be willing to do a bit of a walk-through for someone not expert in Fusion 360?  There's no audio so I'm not sure what you're doing.

It seems in the last few moments you manually move the parts closer or further away from each other.

Using this method are the parts made to be precisely (and automatically) tangential (good!) or are you manually punching in numbers to get it visually close (not good)?

Thanks

Neil

[TrippyLighting]

This thread explains some of the more fundamental concepts of Fusion 360's joint system.

This recording from Autodesk University will explain more concepts.

[todd_sandercock]

At the end of the day mates work excellent, are easy to understand for simple cases and also expand to be extremely powerful. Joints work in most simple cases (not all) and then they don't let you expand on them for advanced cases. 

A great solution would be to just implement both.......

Todd.

[neil]

Agreed Todd!  I have looked at some of the F360 training materials and have so far come away with the same conclusion you have  -- joints are a useful construct that presently fall short of mates, things that SW and Inventor users have come to expect.

To the person who suggested I look further into the online training, thanks and yes that's good as far as it goes, but... it doesn't seem to address the specific need that I outlined, a SIMPLE and precise way to specify rolling contact between a wheel and a track.  No numbers allowed or visual approximations please.

Take for instance a situation where I have a wheel whose size drives the location of an axle that further drives the suspension dimensions and, well, you get the idea.  Now change the diameter of the wheel.  Does it break things?  In parametric systems like SW with mates it's easy, automatic and unerringly precise as long as you mate things appropriately.

I have attached the two parts in question for anyone who wants to show me how it's properly done (thanks in advance).

Neil