Fusion 360 complex models, assemblies and component misalignment

[PeterT]

I haven't played with Fusion for years. It was originally provided as a bonus with Inventor Professional. If it is anything like big brother Inventor there should be constraints that can be applied to the parts. The first part in an assembly can be grounded - usually to the X_Y plane. Subsequent parts can be constrained to part #1 - or to each other, and then just one of them constrained to part #1.

That in a nutshell is exactly how SW works in bottom up mode.

Left Pic is an assembly just in a rollback mode for discussion. At this point the distributer body was imported & fixed to default XYZ origin. We need something to start but it can be any part in any orientation that makes sense. Now bring in another part, the bushing. Define its mates which in this case are concentric to the hole & co-planar to the distributor bottom surface. (ie nothing to do with assembly origin although that is possible too). With a button click on the bushing it shows me all the mates associated to this part, the 2 I just defined as well to any other parts or references as they accumulate. Then its just a matter of rinse & repeat. Bring each part in succession & mate it to whatever makes logical sense. It may relate to the initial part or a different part or a reference or a sub-assembly or whatever makes sense.
Right Pic shows a later stage, the parts with yellow shade are displayed on.

Left pic is snapshot of underlying files separated by type. You can see the assembly ^file above^. A Drawing document of this Assembly (Right pic example)
Below that all the individual Parts which are kind of the lowest level entity. Now they can be referenced or called into any other assembly or sub assembly but nothing changes at the part level. Any change made to a part automatically becomes refreshed & updated in an Assembly. And maybe this better illustrates why if I just rename 'bushing' to 'bushing1' (within Win explorer vs SW utility), the assembly cant know about that change & will complain, because its expecting 'bushing' and from this folder/path.

Now this is just the basic assembly workflow. There are all kinds of other capabilities that have specific purposes. I really should watch some Fusion videos for my own curiosity but I got the impression it was much the same, just different command words. And/or I assumed it was much like big brother Inventor.

 

[Arbutus]

You teach Fusion! Somehow I missed that previously.

What is your student base?

No longer! I taught Digital Manufacturing at UFV. Engineering design, 3D CAD, materials, CNC operations, 3DP, metrology, etc.

 

[Janger]

I have been using Fusion since it's inception.
.



DonDon,

Don, @Arbutus
For engineering modelling your advice and Fusion seems to be well suited. What about more architectural requirements like homes, garages, or perhaps in between like cupboards and kitchens? I use Fusion for those needs too because it is the only hammer I have and everything therefore is a nail. Would you suggest Fusion then and perhaps assemblies components and joints for cabinets, drawers, garage doors, walls & roofs?
J

 

[Arbutus]

Don, @Arbutus
For engineering modelling your advice and Fusion seems to be well suited. What about more architectural requirements like homes, garages, or perhaps in between like cupboards and kitchens? I use Fusion for those needs too because it is the only hammer I have and everything therefore is a nail. Would you suggest Fusion then and perhaps assemblies components and joints for cabinets, drawers, garage doors, walls & roofs?
J

Have you tried Sketchup? That is probably more suited to Architecture and cabinet work.

Theres no reason why F360 couldn't do the job using a subassembly approach, e.g. constructing a wall panel or a truss. Buildings are not my expertise though.

 

[Susquatch]

We used Catia to design factories, manafacturing equipment, assembly lines, and product too. It was awesome.

But no sense dreaming. I can't afford it.

Bring it Fusion!

 

[PeterT]

We used Catia to design factories, manafacturing equipment, assembly lines, and product too. It was awesome. But no sense dreaming. I can't afford it.

I read a Catia perpetual license costs 14K + 2.5K annual maintenance, or annual term license of 5.6K. Probably USD. It would be like buying an F1 to get your groceries LOL. Dassault developed Catia & acquired Solidworks some time ago to compete in the, lets call it medium sized market. Unfortunately the mothership advantages of technology rub off lost its way many versions ago. They have turned into a fat, money squeezing operation. SW itself is still very good but its at the mature point of diminishing returns, especially with competition. I had high hopes for SW Maker, essentially a fully functioning seat with certain limits to commercial apps for $100/yr (no CAM). It is cloud (log-in) based which should have been straightforward. But they seem to have a knack for botching anything cloud related so has a lot of frustration reviews. 3D Experience is a confusing swamp. Anyway, not F360 related, or which software to run, but since you mentioned...

 

[Dan Dubeau]

I only used Catia enough to know that it's pretty powerful, but that there was never a scenario where I (or we as a shop) could afford it. Like supermodels or supercars, there's no use falling in love with them, It's way outta my league, and I can't afford the maintenance or upkeep. But they're fun to look at, and play with. I preferred UG/NX (it was what I learned first in college), but again, never really got a lot of time on either, Couple hundred hours at best, and it's been a decade or more since I've used either so I wouldn't really consider myself proficient or remotely up to date.

Back about 2005 and a few employers ago, we were making some headlight, and door skin gauges and needed to do a lot of surfacing on class a surfaces to produce them. We had CAM (mastercam) that could program them, and a expensive DMG 5 axis to cut them, but no CAD that could actually model them accurately enough (Rhino 2.0 wasn't up to par for that accuracy needed at the time....), so I and another designer at the time got the suppliers to bring us their towers to use with Unigraphics/NX on them to do the modeling and surfacing required. I'd like to think that was one of the more creative workarounds I thought of which no doubt skirted the user agreement, but it all worked out great in the end . It was certainly cheaper than us buying licenses lol. That cost savings unfortunetely was not reflected in the size of my Christmas bonus turkey that year either.......It never is.

 

[TorontoBuilder]

Have you tried Sketchup? That is probably more suited to Architecture and cabinet work.

Theres no reason why F360 couldn't do the job using a subassembly approach, e.g. constructing a wall panel or a truss. Buildings are not my expertise though.

Fusion can model a home, but it is not the best tool for creating detailed layered 2D drawings used in homebuilding.

As well, unless you are using advanced framing techniques (which few people do), or unless you're a panelized builder designers don't actually design wall assemblies as you'd see in a 3D model. They specify overall dimensions, and typology of the wall and leave it to the framers to lay out the location of each actual piece of lumber on site during construction.

The two production builders I know using panelization send their normal plans to the panelization plant where that company uses proprietary design software to convert the plans to a panelized design compatible with their european designed panelization lines.

I used to use Sketchup for a few personal projects for friends construction plans, because of the solar analysis features and visualization for the "client"