Creating a Drawing Template in Autodesk Fusion 360

Autodesk Fusion 360 installs with a default drawing template containing one attributed title block.  For most users this is not adequate to show the metadata they need for the fabrication of the part or for customer presentation.  Companies also would like to add a logo or some other graphic making the drawing more identifiable.

In this video, I will go through the process of creating a Fusion 360 drawing template with a couple of interchangeable title blocks as well as a logo.  I will show the process of importing a title block for an attributed AutoCAD drawing and show the process for switching between title blocks.

I will also briefly mention how to create placeholder views which can be used to create automatic views of an assembly, component, flat pattern, folded component or annotation when places on the drawing template.

Adding and Manipulating Joints in Autodesk Fusion 360

Autodesk Fusion 360 uses Joints to constrain components together within an assembly.  There are a variety of joints for applying both fixed and movable constrains, each one having a variety of unique position and motion settings. 

I have created three videos on this subject and even then, I have barely scratched the surface of the possibilities available when using joints in your assembly.  The first video covers the basic process of placing joints and covering the most common types of joints.  I tried to cover joints that compare to the four basic types of constrains using in Inventor assemblies, Mate, Flush, Angle, Tangent and Insert.

The second video covers some of the methods and commands used to control the movement or motion of various joint types. The video also talks about the Motion Study command vs Animate Model, the two main commands used to animate your completed assembly.

The third video covers two other methods of applying joints.  One is to add Joint Origins to the components of the assembly that can be used to place joints in future assemblies.  These are great because they can be saved with the components and used over and over in other assemblies.  They can be compared to iMates in Autodesk Inventor.  They can be configured to carry assembly information that can be applied, by others, to an assembly joint who may not be familiar with the design.  Also in this video I use the "As-built Joint" command which can be applied to components that are already positioned in the correct relationship to each other in a matter of seconds.  If you watched my earlier video on the "Align" command you will see how quickly you can add joints to a temporary aligned assembly.

Autodesk Fusion 360 Align Tool

There are many ways to model in Autodesk Fusion 360 and using the Align Tool is just one of them.  In this short video I will be using the align tool to center some rectangular blocks on two flats cut on the edge of a circular part.  During the video, I will be showing one method of creating flats on the perimeter of a circular part using a surface and work planes.  

In the second part of the video I will use the align tool to create "temporary" assemblies.  There are occasions when you will need completed assemblies but do not need to take the time to fully constraint the model using joints.  You need a method to quickly assembly the parts and just ground the parts for later use in another top level assembly.  The align tool makes quick work of creating such of an assembly.

Using the Redefine Sketch Plane Command in Autodesk Fusion 360

From time to time you will accidentally place a sketched based feature on the wrong face or work plane.  Sometimes the design changes and a sketch based feature needs to be moved to another face or work plane to allow the part to work correctly.  Most of the time these changes will occur late in the design process and you worry that going back in the timeline and doing the necessary edits will cause a lot of rework time.

Autodesk Fusion 360 has a command that will usually make this task a breeze.  In this short video I will demonstrate the "Redefine Sketch Plane" command and just how easy it can make the editing process.  Once in awhile the use of this command will move a sketch constrain so make sure that you edit the redefined sketch to make sure you check and correct these issues.  In the last model of the video, I will demonstrate this condition and how you can easily correct the misplaced constraint.

More Surface Modeling in Autodesk Fusion 360

In this article I would like to continue using surface modeling in Autodesk Fusion 360 to make some parts which can be difficult to created in the modeling environment.  I will also make some using surfaces which can be completely done in the modeling environment but where surface modeling just makes them a bit easier to create.  The ability to capture the shape of any surface and transfer it to another modeling operation makes surface modeling very special to me.  I hope you will enjoy some other uses of surface modeling in this video.

Creating a Mold for the Plastic Shell Using Autodesk Fusion 360

In my last post, I created a plastic packaging shell for a thumb drive using some surfacing commands in Autodesk Fusion 360.  If you would like to review this video first, you can find it here.  In this post I want to show how easy it is to create a mold for the plastic shell using Fusion 360.  Last, I want to show how to create a new plastic shell from the mold.  The short video of the process can be found here.

Surface Modeling in Autodesk Fusion 360

There are so many ways to model your parts in Autodesk Fusion 360, it is sometimes hard to choose.  One of the most overlooked methods is creating your design with surfaces and then converting them into solids.  Packaging design is one area where designing with surfaces should be your first choice.

In this short video I would like to illustrate the use of surface modeling in the design of a formed plastic cover that could be used to package a USB thumb drive.