Fusion R.U.L.E #1 and #2

[TrippyLighting]

[Post modified to remove "360"]

Fusion R.U.L.E #1
When in doubt, before doing anything, create a component and make sure it's activated.

All objects created after activating the component such as sketches, bodies, construction geometry, joint origins, etc.  are created in that component.

This has several advantages:

1. On activation the timeline is filtered to show only those items in the timeline that pertain to that component. That will make the quickly growing timeline much easier to work with.
2. If a component is exported to the data panel with "save as" this will also export the complete parametric design history.
3. The joints in the "Assemble menu only work with components.
   Drawings can only be created from components
4. Only components show on the BOM.
5. Only components can be added to selection sets.
6. Only components can be isolated.

When another component needs to be edited for example to add geometry, it should be activated before doing so.

the above points apply to assemblies as well.

Exceptions to R.U.L.E #1

There are a number of other workflows that are  perfectly valid but the first step would not be creating a component. For the most part these are top-down design workflows:

1. When you create a skeleton sketch that carries features of several parts of the design and is used to extrude or otherwise create several bodies that then are turned into components. That conversion into a component, however, should happen as soon as possible because features added to a body contained in a component are all added to that components design history.
2. When the design starts with a T-Spline for example the exterior shell of a product that is then split int one or more bodies. Here also conversion into a component should happen as soon as the bodies are created.
3. A design for a single part to be used as an external, linked component (X-REF) in other designs. No component creation is necessary in this case as that design when inserted into another design is inserted as as a component.

 This is also well explained in this 6 minute video tutorial.

Fusion R.U.L.E #2
Name Your Stuff!

No explanation necessary...hopefully 😉

[brianrepp]

Thanks, Peter - PINNED!

[Anonymous]

"No explanation necessary...hopefully ;-)"

Well, this is my first participation here, and I'm totally naive, but this post already has me confused. I see TWO *different* 'R.U.L.E #1's, and NO 'R.U.L.E #2'.

Looks like this CAD/CAM thing is going to be harder to comprehend than I had hoped.

[TrippyLighting]

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@Anonymous wrote:
"No explanation necessary...hopefully ;-)"

... I see TWO *different* 'R.U.L.E #1's, and NO 'R.U.L.E #2'...

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Fixed 😉

[Anonymous]

#1 has a rule then under it is the Exceptions to rule #1 following that is Rule #2. Rule #2 had no exceptions:)

[TrippyLighting]

Correct!

There are no exceptins to Rule #2. You should ALWAYS name your stuff. Period!

[Anonymous]

Excellent tips, especially workflow. This part is key.

[ericksonla]

The suspense over what R.U.L.E. stands for is killing me! Reliable User Life Experience? Really Understandable with Limited Effort? Raucous Undulations of Linear Extrusions? Rules for Users Liking Expertise? (Thanks to Josh.Nelson for assistance with the backronyms)

[TrippyLighting]

This video was just released and adds a method to remover if a user forgot to apply Rule #1.

Thanks @Aaron.Magnin for making it.

[Noah_Katz]

Hi, brand new to F360; my previous experience is with I-DEAS (now NX).

I'm failing to see why have bodies at all.

I did some googling and all I saw was the ability to reference them, but you can reference components - right?

[Anonymous]

I’ve often wondered that, all it seems to do is confuse things, why can’t everything just be a component?

[TrippyLighting]

@Anonymous @Noah_Katz if you start a thread on the normal Forum I's be more than happy making an attempt to explain it.

In short, the entire patch workspace would not work without bodies, the split body command then the combine command wouldn't really be useful either.

[Noah_Katz]

Which one would that be?

Didn't realize I was in the abnormal one 🙂

[TrippyLighting]

The Design, Validate Document part of this forum 😉

[Noah_Katz]

Right, sorry for making you state the obvious; I got here by banging around from link to link, should have just looked at the top of the page

[elh.maayan]

i suggest requesting a feature  (to be controlled in preferences) in fusion that new projects should also automatically create a component and activate it, (i mean, if this is what you usually do , just avoid repetitive action) 

[TrippyLighting]

Why you usually do depends on what you are designing. An Industrial designer such as @cekuhnen uses many bodies in this design and does not really need components to do so.

[cekuhnen]

@TrippyLighting@elh.maayan

That is not 100% correct.

For a concept model where I explore I select a process that is fast not as precise because the outcome is not a model to manufacture

but a model to explore the design.

When creating something that has to be send to a factory or such then I select a different approach to generate the CAD data.

In this step however the design is more or less solved and we execute the blueprint in 3D.

Only because Fusion is a parametric solid modeler does not mean you have to use an engineering like approach to the model.

It really comes down to what you want to learn and do with the CAD data you will generate.

[TrippyLighting]

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@cekuhnen wrote:

It really comes down to what you want to learn and do with the CAD data you will generate.

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@TrippyLighting wrote:

What you usually do depends on what you are designing.

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OK. Granted! I was only 99.99% correct 😉

[elh.maayan]

that's why i said it should be based on preferences. if you have a user profile that usually does one thing OR another, then particular thing will be repeated by him over and over, so if a set of users usually work with components then those set of users will usually do the same procedure of creating a component upon a new project and activate it, those people can turn that option on in preferences.