Non PCB Electromechanical design

[faeluke]

I build machines. They require schematics. They do not require PC Boards. I also document older machines and upgrade electronics. Aspects of the Fusion 360 Electronics functionality directly relate to the task at hand. The ability to make and maintain a library and have mechanical representations of the components. Importing the mechanical representations into a workspace and arranging them to optimize a design is fundamentally the same in my case. The difference is that I want to do this in the standard mechanical design environment, not the PCB environment.

Does the currently released software have any capacity to perform this way? Is Fusion360 bound to the planar world of routes and traces?

An example of this would be making a car, the wiring harness, the motors, the batteries, the switches, gauges, relays, fuses, and other electronic assemblies. Circuits do not work as intended unless all the wires are connected. 

How about a hand-wired guitar amplifier or in my case, a multi-axis CNC with servo motors, VFDs, Spindles, limit switches, and solid-state relays, with all of the related mechanical design constraints? How does Fusion 360 intend to take the software to the next level?

The attached photo is of a machine that I am in the process of retrofitting. I think you can see how design concepts incorporated in the current product could directly benefit this type of engineering effort. 

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @faeluke,

I hope you're doing well. The biggest thing I would say that is missing is the ability to do wiring in the 3D mechanical design environment. This is something Inventor has, but Fusion doesn't. You can definitely model the components in 3D and plan the use of space but you won't be able to do the wiring part in a convenient  way.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

[faeluke]

Jorge,

Thank you for the reply. What I am reading in your reply is that you have this feature in Inventor and it is not in the roadmap for Fusion 360. Is this correct?  How would the newbie who just landed on the Autodesk website figure out how to navigate the products and come up with that conclusion? Is there a link that leads to a comparison table to help with the decision?

Thanks

[jorge_garcia]

Hi @faeluke,

That is a very astute question. Autodesk has a lot of products so I'm not sure how short of asking on a forum a brand new user would be able to come to that conclusion. With that said, I'm no specialist in Inventor so it might be better to ask on the Inventor forum if they have such a link.

I specialize in Fusion Electronics so my depth is here. For now we don't have plans to incorporate the wiring harness functionality into Fusion Electronics, but I never say never. You can obviously make a 2D wiring diagram the 3D is what's missing.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,