Fusion 360 question(s)

Ok Fusion 360 Gurus, when it comes to CAD drawing, film 3D experience is worth nothing.

How do I get to make the gear tooth to be in a V shape. I tried to select center vertex, can`t do. Try to move the 2 sides faces, it refuses. Try to switch to immediate mode, does nothing. Arg! This is so frustrating!

@Pierre Lalancette - Well, I have a way to do it, but not sure how good of a gear profile you get. Probably OK but you can see.



What I did was draw a circle for the gear body and a tooth using the sketch palette. I then did a circular copy of the tooth to make teeth but made twice as many teeth as I wanted. This was to get a profile that was each side of the gear even though it was just one side. Depending on the angle of the V that you want and the thickness of the gear, you may want more. This is still in flatland - just the outlines. I then created an offset plane up from the circle with teeth that was the thickness of half of the gear and did it again. Then I did a loft command and picked a single tooth profile on the bottom and a single tooth profile on the top that I wanted to loft into each other. I think you can also loft along a path if you want curved V sides instead of straight like I did here. That gives you a single tooth at an angle and all the other stuff you drew goes away. I then went back and did a circular copy of that one tooth around the axis to get one half of the gear but it's still just the teeth. Drew another circle to recreate the gear body and extruded it up through the gear teeth to create a single gear. To get the V-shaped teeth, I mirrored the gear across one of the faces. You probably want to join the two bodies but I was just seeing if I could do it. I then went back and made the hub hole, hub, and the other hole just using regular commands.

Not sure if that's the best way - probably not. But it is maybe a way?

I'm sure they are doing it on purpose. How can we make a software that wont be natural, totally not intuitive and will frustrate the user. Welcome to Fusion 360.

I have a sketch selected, I want to make a copy of it. Press M, the move/COPY tool, but guess what? The COPY part of the tool is not there at all. I mean, it is too much to ask for a copy. Is it too hard for a computer to take faces/vertices/edges and to provide a COPY? This is not what computer are here for, doing repetitive task?



Ok, maybe my sketch is not divided into parts that I can duplicate. I do another sketch, only for the gear's tooth. I was hoping to snap on my actual sketch as a reference. Noooooo, snap is only for the grid, other points are not relevant. Still, I do it. M again for the MOVE/copy tool. Now what? I cannot select my sketch, no mater where I click. AAAAAARGGGG!!!!


This poor excuse of a software is among my top 10... Top 5... No, top 3 of worst experience in 3D.

I mean, my job is to learn new 3D softwares every years or so. I love to do that!
I hated every second spend into Fusion 3D.

Because of that, I hate 3D printing and I hate my actual build. This is such a waste of precious time.

Maybe I am not thinking the right way. I am much too used to other 3D softwares. But I tried, I really did.
... calming down ...
Sorry about the rant. I just wanted to let some heat go. I probably trying to do things too fast, not learning the basics. Will have to go back to tutorials... sigh.
Sorry again for the bad attitude. It did not even make me feel better. Should have done something positive instead.

I know your frustration! Even what seems like the simplest task is somehow made to appear ridiculously difficult and counter intuitive.
But luckily there is normally some kind person on YouTube that likes to share their knowledge....


And I'm certain there will be many other ways of completing the same task!!!

Hopefully this will help to relieve the stress

keep at it buddy, You'll get it in no time. There's A LOT of thing's fusion can do, so there's LOT of layers and ways to screw a part up.

@Pierre Lalancette - I'm totally with you that it would be easier if you didn't have to worry about that and could just copy whatever you want and place it wherever you want, but I think there are reasons it is built like it is. There is a timeline at the bottom of the screen that records each step you use to design your part. I don't know their reasons so this is just speculation, but I suspect that the way the transformation from sketch to 3D object works forces them into this paradigm. They have a concept of sketches and objects which are not the same and that may also have something to do with it. I've had to redo designs because there are dependencies that build in and if I change or delete steps earlier in the process, it breaks things later on. It certainly isn't perfect but it's actually quite powerful once you adjust to how it wants things to be done.

At any rate, the software was free so if it doesn't do what you want you aren't out anything but the time you have spent with it so far.

You could also ask the people who really know the software on their boards to see what the real gurus would tell you. There are plenty of menu items I haven't used and I have a hunch that some of them might enable some of the things that have stymied me at times. The guys on the Autodesk forums would know and also know if there is a solution or maybe a bug report or feature request should be filed.

I'm guessing there was something wrong with the way I posted that created a gear with V-shaped teeth?

Thanks all for the kind words. I'm sure there is nothing wrong with your way @Zed, I just don't know the software. I was hoping it would be easy. Nothing to do with simulator is easy. But it could have been fun...

I feel like I am polluting the forum instead of putting my energy to the right place. Thanks @RandomCoder for the tut. It is a nice approach for making tooths and the wheel in one go. Still, I don't recall a single tut where people did make a copy of a sketch. Starting to wonder if it can be done at all.

I will keep at it @Nick Moxley , I have too. One day, I will look at this thread and tell myself: "Man, was I a noob?!"
The only reason I would give up is to go higher with Solid Edge. I have a friend who use it as a professional CAD designer, living 15 min away from my home. But, his busy schedule proved to be a deal breaker and I lost hope for any help from his part.

Before this, never a software made me loose my temper over a duplicate command. Must be a wrong approach.

Hi Pierre, having trouble making gears! maybe you could try this.


Even I can insert from a catalogue! (British spelling)

regards Jerry

what do you mean you cant copy and paste a sketch ?

Like the picture I put here: Fusion 360 question(s)

I was not able to repeat my simple gear sketch. When I redid it over, I could not move it. But it's probably my lack of knowledge.

Making a gear is not the real problem for me, @Jerry Atrick , it is more the V shaped tooth that cause me trouble. I already printed a gear from a catalog as a test. Again, my lack of knowledge and my desire to go too fast is probably the cause of my trouble.

Disable your Bodies, Work with the sketch only,..make sure you highlight All of the sketch lines your wanting..... I copy sketches all the time from one file to the next when needed....your missing something easy for sure. As i said before, give it some time and you'll love it....being freeware its not like your out much as other's have said. Keep at it bud.

I have my shape in a sketch, and I know how to select only the sketch lines.



But I can't do anything with it. Simply because the sketch is not black, due to the curve, probably. But I have no idea how to make it black.

How did you create your sketch? I've not used Fusion 360 yet but do have experience with AutoCad Inventor and I'd bet that you have a gap somewhere preventing it from becoming a complete polyline. In AutoCAD Mechanical you could attempt to hatch the area and it would highlight the open ends for you. Not sure if this function exists in 360 so you may just have to zoom in really close and check all points are connected.

That makes a lot of sense. I don't have Fusion installed here (on the week) because I needed space for Solid Edge... Taking a break of Fusion helps my moral. LOL
But I will check it as soon as I can. I have no idea how you fuse all the lines together, but it should not be hard. Just like making a COPY.

Hi Pierre, maybe this will help, with your challenge.



Jerry

Super. I will try that on friday for sure. Thanks @Jerry Atrick

If someone wants to use that script, you have to put it in (with your user name):

C:\Users\Lalancelot\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Autodesk Fusion 360\API\Scripts

The full folder (ConnectTheDots-master) and remove the -master part of the folder's name (ConnectTheDots).
Then it should appear in your Fusion 360 scripts and you'll be able to run it.

I did. It took about 13 minutes on my poor little laptop. All the black dots disappeared one by one, exepted one. Still, now I can select the center body and extrude a gear.

But what I need is to make copies of this sketch (that I can turn), so I can loft them all into a gear that has v shape tooth. So, I set the select filter to Sketch Curves and select all my curves, press M...

Guess what? I still can't make a copy.



I tried crt-c, crt-v, create a new sketch, extrude it and turn one face, sacrifice a chicken... Nothing worked.

I could recreate the full sketch, connect the dots, but... Come on! There must be a better way.

Frustration is letting place to discouragement.

Hi Pierre, I really thought the execution of that script would have ended you frustration;
So when it comes to finding the answer, we in Australia would say " I'm stuffed if I know"

Hope you find the answer as I keen to know!


Regards Jerry

Almost there:



The copy is in the right click over a selected sketch and use the command 'copy'. Then, you can 'paste' it in the same sketch and move it. Do a create/loft and select the faces in the right order. Then drag select the center sketch and press M to turn it. This is over simplify since all of this as to follow some rules that I don't really understand. I'll tried to do a tut over this, once I'll find linear interpolation in the loft. But it is 4h in the morning and I have to go to bed.

Seriously?



We force you to use our cloud system!
Political design.
What a piece of crap.