Insert body or component around a circle

[dave_flyer]

I have created a lens holder as a body. If you think about looking down on a pair of glasses, you know the lens is curved. My particular lens has a radius of 90 mm. So I created a little holder that the lens sits inside. Think of it like having a small, shallow rectangular box just big enough to lay a lens from glasses in. The bottom of the box is open except for about a 4 mm lip all around and the bottom of the box bows out to match the curvature of the lens. So if you look into the box, you will see through the lens and out the cutout in the bottom of the box.

Now what I want to do is create a 200 mm diameter wheel that has 9 of these little boxes around the outside evenly spaced. I can not seem to figure out how to copy the lens holder body nine times and neatly space it around the wheel.

I could use the circular pattern on the sketch of the wheel to place holes evenly around a wheel but the lip that holds the lens would not have the curvature of the lens. I would appreciate some guidance on this one.

I have included a picture to give a pretty good idea of what I am trying to do. The lens holder is about 50 mm wide. 25 mm of it should be within the wheel and 25 mm is outside the wheel. Obviously the part of the wheel that goes through the cutout in the lens holder should be cut out as well.

Thanks in advance,

Dave

[TheCADWhisperer]

Can you File >Export and then Attach your *.f3d file here?

I am thinking pattern of features or body rather than pattern of sketch.

[dave_flyer]

I agree not to do  this in a sketch if avoidable.  At this point in time, the lens holder itself is a separate design ( I hope I'm using the right word ) which I add to the wheel design. There is no reason for them to not be in the same design and just be two different bodies.The file is attached. Thanks a million for looking at it!!! I've been searching for hours on various tutorials and forums and just can't seem to figure this out.
Dave Beane

[dave_flyer]

I did find create->pattern->circular but I must not b e doing something correctly because it throws an error "one or more patters do not intersect the original body". They do not intersect each other but they intersect the body that I am placing the pattern around. Its like creating a fan. You create the center of the fan and then create one fan blade as a separate body and repeat the fan blade as a pattern around the center. I'm doing the same thing.

[jeff_strater]

@dave_flyer - can you share your model and a screencast of what you are seeing?  It's hard to say whether this is a bug or a problem with your model without more information.

[dave_flyer]

I'd be happy to share it. And I could do a video although I would need you to tell me how to do that. How do I share it with you and how do I produce a video for you? I previously provided a ".f3d" file with this forum. Does that provide what is needed? By looking at the first sketch you should be able to see basically what I am trying to do.

[dave_flyer]

Here. Let me attach it again now with my latest attempt.

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the design, @dave_flyer - a video is not necessary in this case - it's just a reflex for me to ask for a video... 

However, if you ever do want to record a video of Fusion, I'd recommend Autodesk Screencast:  https://knowledge.autodesk.com/community/screencast.  It's free, and it is a useful tool to record stuff on your screen (even non-Autodesk apps).  The video below was made with Screencast.

The screencast below shows how I would approach this problem.  Right now, your lens holder is a separate body.  So, I'd use a Body Pattern to make the circular set of holders, then use a Combine feature to combine them all into one body after the pattern.  Let me know if this works for you:

[dave_flyer]

I am really not certain what was different about the way you did it and the way I was doing it but it made a difference. I did it as you demonstrated and it worked. Then I deleted that and did it again with the body modified a bit and it did not work. Every time I selected the body, it changed to pattern faces which I suspect is why it was failing before. I do not know if that is a bug or somehow I was doing it differently but sometimes it switched from bodies to faces and sometimes it did not. Regardless, I have been able to repeatedly do it correctly so your way works. I just don't really know if I was doing it differently before.

Regardless Thanks! it works now.

Dave