Fusion 360 Help

[JimDawson]

It keep saying driven dimensions and the picture that you show is what I saw. But I couldn't save it. I wanted to do top and one side for the angle. How do I keep that picture?

I use the Windows Screen Snip tool to grab the image, then paste into Irfanview to put the blue border on it, then copy & paste into the HM reply window. You can use any image editing software you want, even Paint that comes with Windows. The other method to capture the image is to do an ALT/PNT SC, this captures the entire current window.

can you do a sketch after the fact? Go around the outline of the block?

Yes, click on create sketch, and choose the surface or plane you want to draw on.

It looks like it saves and reloads just fine with the dimensions intact. I am using the licensed version of Fusion 360, if you are using the free version I'm not sure what the result will be.

 

[dbb-the-bruce]

Sketch "after the fact" - when you start a sketch, you can project or include or even intersect bodies or features that already exist. Then you can add dimensions. Driven vs. driving is also quite useful.

As far as using drawing vs. sketches - I guess it really depends on what work flow you are used to. I took as much mechanical drawing (by hand with pencils and a tee-square, didn't get to use the "drawing machines" until the second year) 3 years total. I really learned a lot about reading and creating drawings. However, I've never worked in a shop and never had to build stuff "to print"

I find that for my own projects that I've created I understand what it is and how it goes together, and manipulating a CAD model makes it way easier to see how things relate than trying to read it from a drawing. So snapshotting sketches when needed works best for me.

If you are more comfortable or used to working from drawings, then by all means use the drawing feature in Fusion.

 

[Just for fun]

Here's how I like to do it.

Once I have my drawing made like I want it. In the upper right under file, new drawing from design. That opens another window with the drawing in it. Play around with a few views and then about in center on the top you can dimension your drawing. You can lots of dimensions or a few it's up to you. Then I can print it out and take it to the shop.

Tim

 

[Chewy]

Thank you all very much! I have plenty to try. For the record, my drafting was in high school back in the 60's. Pencil, paper and eraser. I was pretty good and did some side projects for the teacher. Little things people wanted that he didn't want to get involved with. About 30 years ago I learned AutoCad Lite for doing electrical drawings and work aids for troubleshooting. I used that at home until the computer wouldn't support it. I now use Drafsight Pro, because it works and is decent in price. I have Fusion 360 free. I am learning it for 3D printing. I want to make drawer dividers for taps and endmills and also to make molds for metal casting. I spent 4 days trying to get this dovetail block to work. Don't know how many times I started over. In Draftsight, it would have been an hour or so, After I got the block so it looks good, then I spent a day trying to put dimensions on it. The I asked you guys for help. Thanks again! Chewy

 

[Chewy]

Update. Had some time over the hurricane to play with this. I did the sketch and used screen capture to get the following. Next problem: I downloaded Ken's dovetail holder and then measured it. Fusion shows it is 36" long so I scaled in down 10 percent. It is now saved in the cloud and computer at 10 percent and opens that way as a .f3d file. No matter what I do, I can't get to save as an .stl at the new size. Every file goes back to 36". What am I missing?

 

[JimDawson]

Update. Had some time over the hurricane to play with this. I did the sketch and used screen capture to get the following. Next problem: I downloaded Ken's dovetail holder and then measured it. Fusion shows it is 36" long so I scaled in down 10 percent. It is now saved in the cloud and computer at 10 percent and opens that way as a .f3d file. No matter what I do, I can't get to save as an .stl at the new size. Every file goes back to 36". What am I missing?

Could it be loading in mm? That is pretty common. You may need to scale at 0.03937 to get it to display in inches.

The dimensions on the drawing look to be metric values.

Also make sure the document is set to inches if that is what you want to work in.


Not sure why it's saving incorrectly.

 

[Chewy]

Downloaded the file from Thingverse. The yellow picture is what was shown. Drawing said the unit was inches, which didn't make sense that he would design a tool holder 3' long. OK, I don't know what I'm doing, so I played around and down scaled it. Saved it. Second picture is file opened up. Then when I export as .stl to desktop, the file reverts back to 3'.

 

[JimDawson]

Can you post a link to that file? I'll download it and see what I can do with it. I'm not sure what is going on, but most likely a setting somewhere.

 

[Chewy]

Toolpost Indicator Holder, modeled and printed.​

Ken 226 9/13/22 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5511389

This is original post in the group and where I went to get file.
The .f3d is on my computer but the attach files won't pick it up. I checked it and it shows 3.64" Then I exported it as .stl and here you go. How can I get the 10 percent .f3d and .stl files to you?

 

[Chewy]

Can I send you the two files on Dropbox? If so PM me the info. Thanks Chewy