Fusion 360 Configurations! | What's New Sept 2023 | How To Configure A Part | Tutorial
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- Опубликовано: 21 сен 2023
- In this video we are going to take a look at the newly released Configurations in Fusion 360. In this vid we are only going to scratch the surface but build a foundation with how to configure a simple part and what variations or options we might want to consider.
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Appreciate the video! Took me a while to figure out why I wasn't seeing the menu with a paid subscription. The Configure menu won't show in 'Single-User Storage.' You need to be in 'Teams' to see/use the Configure features.
Great info! I thought the single user storage was all phased out but I would guess you aren't a new user? Good point and ill pin this just in case it affects someone else.
@LearnEverythingAboutDesign Intersting to know, should I be worried a lot of my work is in 'Single-User Storage", Do i need move all my projects over to a teams to get the configurations~ Seriously?
FYI. There is a known bug switching to Teams. Our Company has been without use of our files for 2 days (48 hours) and counting. Be careful
This is gold! It's saving a table of parameters isn't it?
i'm thinking, we sell cheeseburgers, so we can detail each of them in a configuration table and never have to mess with it again.
No onions, no problem.
T
lol. Wave of the future. CADburger :)
The configuration tool is very cool and your video 100% what I needed to get up and running quickly.
Great! We did a 3 part series on configurations for parts, assemblies, and drawings if you are looking for a little more. ruclips.net/p/PLBDfGh8A8kXXmBat7iDTFTU3VyFwTy9tB
Love that tip for creating the parameter directly in the sketch! That's going to save me a ton of time just as a standard practice. 👏 Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
Excellent and comprehensive! This is a great place to start. Thanks for making your recommendations at the end of the video. I look forward in your video about configurations in assemblies (aka configured components)
Glad it was helpful! I had been testing configs in CAM and drawings as well.
Fantastic explanation of the new features. Thank you!!!!
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks again for doing this tutorial as it was really easy to follow and really useful to what I am doing at work as already using user parameters 😎
You're very welcome!
Thank you for the tutorial
You’re welcome 😊
It would be a game changer if you could link the configurator table and graphic to a website. A customer could then change numbers in the table on your website, the graphic would show them what it would look like, and then they could purchase and checkout.
You'd probably have to put min. & max. limits on the dimensions so that they couldn't break it, but in theory it doesn't seem too difficult....
Yeah that is how DriveWorks pro is in Solidworks. It can trigger the drawings, email manufacturing etc all from the web. www.driveworkslive.com/#examples I used to work with that back years ago and it is pretty cool. There have been plugins for Blender called Blend4Web that do something similar like a product configurator.
Wow, that's pretty interesting; i'd never heard of DriveWorks. Thanks for telling me about it, and for putting together a great tutorial video 👍
Thanks Matt. I wonder why in your 1st example, we could not rename the dimension in the configuration dialog box? I like the 3rd example as usually in my designs, there are only a few dimensions that I am comparing. That would work nicely. Great explanation. 👍
Good point! You can right click and change the name of d1 to something else if you want. That changes the name of the dimension in the parameter dialog the same way as doing Width = 50mm does. So that is certainly an option and something I should have mentioned!!
Great video. It’s still a little tough to understand how this will be used in real life. If you create a new actual project utilizing configurations, could you show how you are using them? Love your videos!
Yeah it is a little tough to see. I used to do this in Solidworks and Driveworks. One example was a client I worked with making Firetables. So lets say you have 2 standard table sizes and the frames were nearly the same, one just longer. You would have a single sheet metal design that was configurable as "long" and "short". Then in the assembly you might have the option to have say a glass shield on one table so you would have a design for that which could be suppressed in the assembly.
There are a couple of ways to look at this. One is a variation of a single part. like a screw for example. You could have a 1/4-20 screw and a dozen different lengths. In a config you would change the length of the screw, length of the thread, maybe even coating or material. That screw would be used in an assembly and if you have a design where one component needs a 1/2 long screw, you pick that config, but another design might need a 1in version of that screw.
I will try to come up with an example that doesn't take hours to go over, but does that help at all?
@@LearnEverythingAboutDesign it does make sense, just trying to see the huge benefit over just using parameters. I’ll mess around with it and see how it goes. Thanks for the reply!
Is it possible to have multiple different configurations of the same component in the same file?
Like if I create a apartment with multiple doors which are similar, but with different hights, so that I can create this door with different configurations and then dublicate the door-component to use in the appartment (and if I e.g. change the doorknob it will update all of them but still have the right hights)?
Yeah so this tends to get complicated to handle but the short answer is yes. The way that would typically work is to have your doorknob be a configured model external to an apartment assembly. When you bring a design into an assembly it asks you which config you want. When you configure an external component the thing is called "Insert" in the config list for some reason. There it lets you pick which config. So you could have different versions of every knob, but you need to manually configure that as they aren't linked to each other in that way. If there is an instance where there is no door for that knob then you would suppress the door and Knob.
So yes it can be done but it gets to be a mental challenge to structure. Just a different way of looking at it.
Now we have most of the feature to fully rely on fusion for product development. Do you have any information if they are going to add kinematic simulation like solid works ? the available motion study is almost useless
Not sure on that one. I know contact sets in Fusion work a lot better than enabling contacts in Move with Solidworks. But true kinematic motion in an assembly, including tracking points, adding dampers and motors etc is still much better in Solidworks. I am honestly not sure if we will see that in Fusion since Inventor is still the mechanical design product. If i ever know you will know :)
I have a question, would you be willing to make a video showing how to derive a monocoque chassis from a mesh/solid car body? I’ve been following along all you videos. It has been a huge help.
When you say Derive, do you meant create it? There is a derive tool which takes a body/component from a single design and makes it external and still reference the original, but I don't think that is what you are asking.
Derive might have not been the best term. Possibly taking a mesh or solid body and building a monocoque from it. Essentially using the geometry from the cars body and working out how to integrate the monocoque tub to it.
@@user-nk6lk4ik3p Are you looking for how to design one, or just looking at how to use a mesh reference? I likely want to avoid how to design one as that is a pretty serious topic with loads of simulation involved and computation on composite materials, especially foam or sandwich core stuff is just not in the wheelhouse of most fea programs.
Very good points. I would say just the general concept of using a mesh as reference and building out a tub. Essentially I want to get a design that I could send out to an engineer to finish the structural integrity but have a design that is within what I’d be looking for.
Mines isn’t showing planes? Or sketch lines. I need help as a total beginner
When you are in the configuration table, is the construction plane, sketch, and features highlighted in the timeline? If so you can click on them and get the configuration options. for a construction plane its suppression or how it was defined. So an offset plane will have "AlongDistance". You won't get a specific configuration for a line, only a dimension used to control it.
Could I ask how you could automate the following part. I have been trying to create a set of squares using only parameters to create this part for 3D printing clearance and fit testing. My idea was to create a grid of 5 x 5 squares with one row dimensioned squares of 10,9,8,7,6mm extruded 10mm. On that extrude chamfer the top and sides by 0.1mm. Then on row 2 reduce the cube size by 0.1 and the chamfer 0.1. On the following 3 rows reduce the size and chamfer by a further 0.1mm. The last row would have sizes reduced by 0.4 and the chamfer at 0.4. This way you could take a machined cube of 10,9,8,7, & 6 and check the clearance required for a force fit, tighten fit and a loose fit for using in your design. Of course squares of 10,9,8,7,6 would be kind of useless, but you get the idea. The only 2 ways I can reproduce this is a manually by hand, but if you wanted to change the primitive you would have to start again. Or using a script that takes a users input and produces the appropriate model. But I have found you end up with 1 sketch 25 x extrudes and 25 chamfers again not practical. Is there another way to automate this using patameter driven sketches and features? Perhaps using a pattern?
Hmmm.... I think the direction you pick will be heavily based on if this model does require constant changing. I don't think you will be able to automate it in a way where you can just enter a value and have it build the entire part(bodies) unless you do write a script.
BUT, in terms of making this a robust model where you can edit tolerance and base values I think it could be done with just a few simple parameters.
If you go the script route i did a video awhile back on making design with CSV inputs. so you could build a spreadsheet and build a file(with some more coding first).
You could do this with configurations, but honestly parameters are probably easier. My suggestion would be to have a few basic parameters like itemNumber, Clearance, Offset.
itemNumber would be 1,2,3,4 and you would use this to multiply by another value. So your chamfer for example. If you are on the 4th item you would multiply a chamfer value (.1) x the itemNumber(or row number) giving you .4.
Same goes for building the overall size. Say you wanted each box to be 1mm smaller than the previous, have your offset value of 1mm. Then you sketch the first one "FirstBlock = 10mm" and then your next one would be "FirstBlock - (ItemNumber x Offset)" or something like that.
This would require you to build the basic model but if you use the parameters carefully it should be robust enough for you to modify some basic numbers.
Do you think you would have to change the size, tolerance, chamfers on something like this a lot?
@@LearnEverythingAboutDesign thank you so much for your prompt and concise response. Yes I think having multiple different printers that the calibration of shapes if a clearance is required whether that be loose, tight or interference. Especially when changing materials. A large majority of my prints are time consuming and there minor validation of the clearance or tolerance I think is necessary to ensure as far as reasonably practical the print will succeed. Probably an OCD method, but after time I store and build profiles of clearance and tolerances per machine material and settings. You raise some valid points although I think this could be a valuable update for Fusion 360 so that programming isn’t always required and in different scenarios programming isn’t an option in a complicated assembly.
Stubbled across you recently and love the channel. Thank you
@@andyhelipilot3528 Here is what I was thinking, just didn't have the time yesterday to model it. a360.co/48wZUHy So in the Change Parameters dialog you can change Block1 to something else say 15mm and all the blocks update and stay spaced properly(note that i used Block1 dim to also space out the top and bottom blocks). If you change the Offset value that will change the next size down. Right now its 10,9,8,7. If you make offset = 2 it will be 10, 8, 6, 4. Tolerance controls the size of the bottom 4 blocks. its .1mm now so the second row of blocks are 9.9, 8.9. 7.9, 6.9mm. For the chamfer i just did a .1mm on the smallest and multiplied it by the block so the largest block as .4mm chamfer.
Hopefully makes some sense. And yeah i totally get what you mean about the print. When i print something that i need to say press an LED into i always do thin test prints first for bolts, led, and other things that need to fit. Screw bosses are the big one for me.
Would this also work for a design which has a pattern?
Yup. when you configure a pattern you can suppress it, change the quantity and distance values. It won't have logic so if you have more instances than fit on a design it won't alert you to that. It goes purely off the numbers.
can configurations work with text? Because I've made different configurations but the text changes for all of them and i cant figure out how to keep different text on each part.
Sadly not to the best of my knowledge. If you mean text on a sketch the best i can think of is to have new sketch/feature for each text you want displayed, and for that configuration you would unsuppress the one needed and suppress all the others.
Matt, have you figured out the file format of the new configurations features in fusion 360. I have a long csv list of about 10 parameters in each line to import. I have followed your python examples but I haven't figured out the file names and structures. Perhaps a new tutorial from you, please?
There is no special file format for the configs. Once you create a configuration the icon in the data panel will contain the little slider ion thing in the bottom right of the cube. Unfortunately at this time there is no access to configs in the API so the only way to get those parameters into a configuration is to manually configure them after the csv import. You have to open the config table in your design and just above the config names in the top right is an Fx icon that lets you pick parameters to configure. Until autodesk allows for a spreadsheet import or opens the configs to the API language, sad to say it is going to be a lengthy manual process.
Thanks for the response. I appreciate your help.
How would you import a table of parameters?
There is no direct way to do it, but in the autodesk app store there is a free app that lets you import them. We also have a video in our API series going over how to take a CSV file and import that to populate parameters and configure a design (before configurations were a thing in fusion)
WHEN will AD give us a center point LINE? No I don't want to use Delta! Solidworks has had a center line tool for 15 years
Going to guess you are the minority on that one. In all my years using Solidworks since about 2008 I don't think I have ever used the midpoint line other than to show it was a thing. I would guess it isn't even on the radar for Fusion but could be wrong. I would love some more updates to sketching.
And still no option to enter parameters into features!!!
This new feature ONLY for payed customers introduces exactly this, with additional steps.
And adds different "sets of parameters" (configurations) to chooce from!
Not sure i follow 100%. In a feature you can do the same thing such as "Height = 100". it will make this a favorite in the modify parameter dialog, but not be listed exactly as a user parameter. Unfortunately the hang up there is if you use the naming during dim creation and try to repurpose that in a feature it doesn't exactly work because the ID of that dim is still "d1" or "d2"....
This configurations behaves mostly how configs behave in all other CAD programs that have it. You pick with dims/params/features you want to configure and it adds it to a table. How would you want this to work?
Fusion 360 has a poorly developed parameter system; parameters should be per component rather than per project. Each component should have a set of arbitrarily defined parameters, with default values or ones changed in relation to other parameters. This would solve many issues in designing with Fusion 360
I hear what you are saying but I am not sure I agree there. Most CAD programs work in that manner because of individual part files nested in an assembly file. With fusion having components in a single file it complicates things. You can still use it with external components which will contain their own parameters and be available when you Edit in Place. Personally I am ok with the way it is set up. Other programs like Solidworks for example wont let you apply fillets across multiple bodies with a single operation so there are Pros and cons to the structure.
For me if I am developing a plastic part, I don't want a draft parameter to be stored in each component, I want it to be globally available. Same for wall thickness. What you end up with in systems where the parameters are broken out is that you have to get very creative to relate one part to another part and manage a lot of contextual references. For me that is one big plus with the way Fusion has it set up (which isn't perfect by any means :))
@@LearnEverythingAboutDesign Wouldn't it be more convenient if there were two types of parameters? Global parameters for the project and parameters for parts, and then you could make references from the global parameter to the part parameter. You could globally change the part parameter by setting the project parameter, and similarly you could then individually change each part.
@@rafal7217 In theory that would be great, but in practice knowing you can drag bodies from one component to another, I don't know how you would manage that. Lets say you modeled everything as bodies and later converted them to components, vs starting them as independent components, but later put them all into a sub-component grouping. What happens to those parameters? And if the parameter was used on 2 bodies in 1 component, and one of those bodies was moved, is the parameter duplicated and linked in a new component?
I have had conversations with some of the developers about the complexity of this stuff which gets even worse when you Derive bodies/components out, have drawings or ecad data etc. I jsut don't know how it could be done aside from just a top level global set that doesn't care if you have bodies or components and if they move.
@@LearnEverythingAboutDesign I have experience with the QML language from the Qt framework, which is essentially a language that structurally describes how the GUI of an application should look, and you can basically compare it to 3D modeling. There are parts there too, parts are used in various places, sometimes you need to customize a specific part or a whole group, and there are parameters there too, basically everything is parameterized in that language. And when I compare how parameterization works there and how everything is straightforwardly solved, I can't understand at all what the authors of this program have done. The truth is that I'm just learning this program, so maybe I don't understand everything, but having a comparison to the QML language where basically the language does something similar, I would gladly advise the Fusion authors to see in such QML how simple parameter management and project customization can be done.
@@LearnEverythingAboutDesign "And if the parameter was used on 2 bodies in 1 component, and one of those bodies was moved, is the parameter duplicated and linked in a new component?" Each body, each component should have the ability to define its own parameters, and each body, each component should have its own identifier, then you can flexibly manage parameters as needed. That's how it's done in QML, and it works great there. You provide the id of the element you're interested in and its parameter, and you make the relationships you want, linking to any parameter. It works superbly in QML