Creating Component Joints on Workplanes and Random Face Points Using Sketches

Autodesk Fusion 360 uses joints to add degrees of freedom between two components.  I also use Autodesk Inventor which also uses assembly constraints to take away degrees of freedom between components.  Assembly constraints allow you to use work planes for the jointing of components, joints do not.  This is one feature I miss very much.

Recently I began to experiment with sketches on work planes as a method of allowing me to use Fusion 360 joints to joint components with work planes.  In this short video I show you a very simple example of my process.  I first of all show how to joint a components to a random point on the face of another component and then how to joint a component to a work plane all using a simple sketch.  I used a simple offset work plane but any work plane can be use with the process.

I believe this will open up an entirely new method of assembling my models in Autodesk Fusion 360 and I hope you will find uses for the process also.

Work Planes and Points Along a Path in Autodesk Fusion 360

The creation of work planes, for sketches, in the design of lofts in Autodesk Fusion 360 got a lot easier in the past few months with the introduction of the Plane Along a Path command located under the Construct drop-down menu.  Along with the Point Along a Path command, modeling complex features sketches are a snap.  Take a look at this short video and see just how easy placing complex work features along a path has become.