Fusion Browser Explanation for a beginner ???

[frugalguido]

Can someone help me understand the browser/file/data panel system in Fusion. Like when to create a new design, a component or a body. It appears if you don't set it up correctly at the start you kinda put yourself in a corner. The whole left side menus doesn't make any sense to me. The online videos to me just goes over it too fast.

 

[Just for fun]

I'm not sure I understand your question. I consider myself a beginner also, even though I have been playing with Fusion for about a year. For the most part a single item is going to be a body if you have a part with several pieces the main item is the body all the other parts are going to be components. At least that is the way I understand it. I'm still not really good at naming the components, sketches and bodies. I sometimes get a good design going only to find out that I need to change something earlier on and at that point I also find that I should have named or maybe did a better job of naming the components.

 

[bill70j]

Can someone help me understand the browser/file/data panel system in Fusion. Like when to create a new design, a component or a body. It appears if you don't set it up correctly at the start you kinda put yourself in a corner. The whole left side menus doesn't make any sense to me. The online videos to me just goes over it too fast.

I agree that the videos are very hard to keep up with, especially when first starting out.

Have you tried opening a Fusion session and listening to the online video simultaneously in a step by step fashion? I found myself listening to a small portion of the video, pausing it, then going over to the open Fusion session and performing the exact steps outlined in the video --- and repeating this ad infinitum. This worked for me. It took forever, but I finally got somewhere with it.

Also, I found instructional videos done by Fusion users on YouTube far more helpful than those done by Autodesk. Lars Christensen, for example, has a great series for beginners, as does ProductDesignOnline. Lars does a multi-video series on building an electrical box. I did the pause method for every step in that series and it worked great.

But for your specific question about the Data Panel, this Autodesk video is pretty good.

HTH, and good luck. Stick with it and you'll get there!!

Bill

 

[frugalguido]

Have you tried opening a Fusion session and listening to the online video simultaneously in a step by step fashion? I found myself listening to a small portion of the video, pausing it, then going over to the open Fusion session and performing the exact steps outlined in the video --- and repeating this ad infinitum. This worked for me. It took forever, but I finally got somewhere with it.

Also, I found instructional videos done by Fusion users on YouTube far more helpful than those done by Autodesk. Lars Christensen, for example, has a great series for beginners, as does ProductDesignOnline. Lars does a multi-video series on building an electrical box. I did the pause method for every step in that series and it worked great.

But for your specific question about the Data Panel, this Autodesk video is pretty good.

HTH, and good luck. Stick with it and you'll get there!!

Bill

I agree that the Lars is one of the best instructors out there, that guy can teach (I meet him in person at one of the trade shows). One problem is that Lars's beginning video is dated at this point ( 6 years ago), I wish he would revise them. IMHO the ProductDesignOnline videos are terrible to me, too fast, doesn't show a lot click moves, always mentions something that he will talk about in later video ( if you mention it now, talk about now! I will check out the Autodesk video.
Too me the left side of the browser does make any sense and how to setup the beginning of the drawing, some show to save right at the beginning of the part ( you haven't drawn anything so how do you save nothing) , some say start a new project, confused.

thanks

 

[frugalguido]

To add, I can draw a single part, like hose adapter, but I want to move to the ability to design a multi part assembly, where there is a need to understand the left side go the Fusion browser and how to use it.

 

[dbb-the-bruce]

Sounds like you are already playing around with it - at least a bit. Just spend some time on a fictional design that you break up into components. It's really up to you to decide what how to structure your design. I've been using fusion casually for a number of years now, and I've done some pretty complicated designs.

It did take quite a while to get a good sense of how bodies, components, joints relate and how the parametric cad and design history work with them. In the beginning I would turn design history off and just work with whatever bodies I needed. You can get pretty far with just structuring bodies and sub-bodies in a tree like way. However this eventually gets cumbersome and joints can only be made between two components.

Components become really useful when you have multiple copies of something in your design. Even something as simple as a bolt. If you decided to change it to a cap head, you just change it once and all the uses of the component will change. etc.

I'd suggest finding something that has a bunch of parts and trying to make a design from it. don't worry about being accurate as to measurements and surface details etc. just try to model it. I did this for a pattern makers vise (partly because I needed to, partly because it's a fun challenge). It was a great learning experience and help me improve my design work flow.

I've done it for several things, and I often find myself spending way too much effort making a model. For instance, I recently needed to do a simple design for a stereo shelf and companion LP cabinet. I ended up making make a bunch of components for the stereo equipment along with modeling the room. I did actually need to do some of this as it was a built in and in a tight space - I wanted to get a feel for how it would work out, but I went way farther than needed.

Pick something simple like a box with a lid and a bunch of drawers (machinists box?). The drawers are probably mostly the same but different sizes. Make one drawer as a component and then copy it and change the heights or widths. You will need to unlink the components when you copy them so changing one doesn't change all of them. The pull tabs on the drawers will all be the same, so you leave the components linked and if you change the size of the tab, they will all follow.

You can group the components hierarchically, top component is the box, contains draw components, draws contain the pull tab components.

Just have some fun and play around with it. Starting with something physical you can have in front of you will designing / modeling really helps, is a good way to learn and is kind of fun once you get good at it.

If you work on a specific design, I can probably offer some help if you get stuck. However, I am by no means an expert and may not be a great teacher either. Post stuff when you get stuck and I (or others) can probably help.

Over the years there have been many times that I've gotten quite frustrated with Fusion (having no prior CAD experience) but the more I've learned the happier I am with it. I use it regularly for my desktop CAM/CNC

Good luck

 

[dbb-the-bruce]

I should add that I now (almost always) start a design with a component and every component starts with a sketch. If I don't, I catch myself and structure it right before I go too far. The design will only get more complicated as you go and starting off right (learning to start right) is way better than trying to untangle a design later.

 

[frugalguido]

Thanks for the input, trying to understand what you said above.

 

[JimDawson]

It took me a long time to get my head around what you want to do.

Before you can assemble something, you have to have the parts available. You make the parts first, then assemble them in a separate drawing. If you need more parts, draw them in separate drawings.

So draw:
Part1
Part2
Part3
Then
Save a blank drawing as MyAssembly
Then Insert one of the Parts (called a component in Fusion) into MyAssembly
Then insert and Join or Align the next part, or whatever else you want to do with it.
You can Edit the parts in the assembly drawing if needed and it will update the original Part drawing.

Sometimes I draw the base part, and then insert the other components into that drawing.

 

[dbb-the-bruce]

Thanks for the input, trying to understand what you said above.

I think the "pick something simple" paragraph is most relevant. Just start modeling something with components and we can probably help out better.

I think what Jim is talking about having a design file/project per component. That can be really useful. For CNC I have a lot of designs that are of reusable fixtures, I then pull them into a design that combines them with a part to do my CNC jobs. Things like a machinists vise or a fixture plate.