Component Gets Rotated But Not All Sub-Components Rotate With It

[RogerInHawaii]

I have a Component that has a bunch of sub-Components. It all looks fine. But I needed to make a substitution for one of the Sub-Components, a BoltAndWasher.

The original BoltAndWasher was added to the overall Component as a Cut-PasteNEW, and I really should have made it as a simple Cut-Paste so that it would be linked back to the original, "master", BoltAndWasher. So I located the place in the timeline where that BoltAndWasher existed, set the History Marker just after it, and DELETED it from the timeline. Doing that Delete caused an EXEPECTED error for a subsequent Circular Pattern that replicates the BoltAndWasher into the rest of the bolt holes along the bright band at the top of the component. I then did a Copy-Paste from the master BoltAndWasher into the same location in the timeline and did a Joint operation to position on the main Component in the same location where the prior (Cut-PasteNEW) one had been, namely that upper left bolt hole. I then edited the Circular Pattern feature (which no no longer had a Component to do the pattern with) and told it to use the newly added and positioned (Cut-Pasted) BoltAndWasher. And, so far, it looked good, just like it had before I replaced the Cut-PasteNEW version of the BoltAndWasher with the Cut-Pasted BoltAndWasher. It still looked just like the above picture.

I then let the timeline run to the end of the main component. A lot further down the timeline for the main Component a Move-Rotate is done that rotates the entire Component 120 degrees around its vertical axis. That's fine. It in fact NEEDS to have that rotation in order to properly place it in the design. And PRIOR to my BoltAndWasher edit to the component, replacing the Cut-PasteNEW with the Cut-Paste BoltAndWasher, it all went fine.

BUT now, with that edit, the rotation doesn't work right:

The main component rotated properly. The new Copy-Pasted BoltAndWasher, which was Jointed into position on the main component got correctly rotated. But all the (copies of that) BoltAndWasher that were created by the Circular Pattern operation did not move at all. 

All of those extra BoltAndWashers that are created by the CirculrPattern operation are indeed where I expect them to be in the Browser hierarchy, namely as sub-components of the BoltsAndWasher sub-component which is within the One-Third Section component.

It's that One-Third Section Component that gets Move-Rotated, so why aren't all the sub-components rotating with it?

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? I AM QUITE BAFFLED.

Does anyone have any clue as to what I might have done wrong?

[TrippyLighting]

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@RogerInHawaii wrote:

Does anyone have any clue as to what I might have done wrong?

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Not without looking at the design file.

[RogerInHawaii]

I was able to address/AVOID the issue by doing the 120 degree rotation of the component just before the point in the timeline where I start adding those BoltAndWasher components and using the Circular Pattern operation to duplicate and position them. But that really does not answer the question of why such added components don't get rotated along with the rotation of the parent component.

My design is way too big to upload to make it available for testing by others. But if I have time (I'm already working late on a Saturday night on this project) I'll try making a small test design that does the same basic sequence of operations and see if I can duplicate the problem.

In fact, I seem to recall a similar issue that I encountered (and reported) more than a year ago also involving Circular Patterned components and subsequent movement of the parent component. If I recall correctly it was acknowledged then that Fusion wasn't handling it correctly. Either that issue was never corrected or I've encountered a similar one now.

And a quick question: When you do a Move operation on a Component, either a translation or rotation, it appears that no corresponding item is placed in the timeline. Similarly, when you're doing a Copy/PasteNEW you're prompted with the option to move or rotate the copy, but no such move/rotate item is placed in the timeline. In both cases it means there's really no way to go back to the point in the timeline where the move/rotate was done and EDIT that move/rotate. Is there a reason why move/rotate items are not included in the timeline?

[TrippyLighting]

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@RogerInHawaii wrote:

My design is way too big to upload to make it available for testing by others. 

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You can provide the public link to it or invite me to the project. No need to upload a thing.

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@RogerInHawaii wrote:

And a quick question: When you do a Move operation on a Component, either a translation or rotation, it appears that no corresponding item is placed in the timeline. Similarly, when you're doing a Copy/PasteNEW you're prompted with the option to move or rotate the copy, but no such move/rotate item is placed in the timeline. 

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Moving a component does not create a feature in the timeline. It creates 2 new icons in the tool bar for carpeting the position or reverting to the original location.

When you accept the new location then a position capture icon is placed in the timeline.

Or, if you did not notice these buttons and start making a joint between possibly unrelated components, Fusion 360 will warn you that components have moved and will present you with the choice to capture the position of those components or revert the move:

Moving components is not a recommended workflow for locating and orienting components!

I am very convinced that this is one of the sources of this problem. 

Another problem that very many new Fusion 360 users run into and is that by default all components in Fusion 360 are floating, meaning you can drag them around in the viewport or move them with the move command. 

Let's say you have a bolt pattern. You might insert a bolt into the design and use a rigid joint to assemble it to the 1st hole. Then you create a pattern to create instances of that bolt in the other hole locations.

These instances are NOT assembled. They are floating and can be moved or dragged around.

The correct workflow is to create a rigid group joint between the pattered instances and the 1st bolt.

Spinning this a little further I would have 3 suggestions for the Fusion 360 team to improve this and bring FUiosn 360 on par with other mid level CAD systems:

1. Allow users to enable/disable the recording of position captures/ Default should be off. This would eliminate a lot of the the problems so may people have with assemblies and is also much more similar to the behavior any other CAD system I know. This includes Autodesk Inventor, Solid Works, ZW3D etc. 

2. The pattern command for components needs to have an option to rigid group the instanced ever to the paternities seed, or to a selectable component. It needs a similar option for auto combining bodies or an auto stitch function for surface bodies. That slo would eliminate a host of issues I've seen here onto forum.

3. Allow to derive a pattern from an already existing pattern. If you make a bolt pattern, usually first you have to pattern the holes. Then you have to re-create exactly the same pattern for the bolts from scratch. I put this in the idea station 5 years ago ?

[brenton]

This solved my problem. I had modeled a component that was then inserted into my current design and components would rotate. I tried the capture position but had no luck. Thanks for the pro tip on rigid group joints. = )