Top 10 Fusion Tips you should know — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00In this video, I'm going to share some
2. 0:02of the tips and tricks that I share with
3. 0:04my customers and that I teach during my
4. 0:06fusion classes. [music] So, let's take a
5. 0:09look.
6. 0:13So tip number one, if you are in your
7. 0:16sketch environment and you start drawing
8. 0:19something like a line or a rectangle and
9. 0:21you see this weird blue thing on your
10. 0:24screen, that is because you have 3D
11. 0:29sketch turned on. And typically you do
12. 0:32not want to have 3D sketch turned on. So
13. 0:36what I recommend is making sure that
14. 0:38this is unchecked.
15. 0:40I'll go ahead and undo my lines. And now
16. 0:43when I create my lines, you'll notice
17. 0:46that you don't see that weird triad
18. 0:50anymore.
19. 0:513D sketch is only used when you're doing
20. 0:54like threedimensional sketching, like
21. 0:56you're wanting to route like wires
22. 0:59through walls or something like that.
23. 1:01You typically do not want to use it in
24. 1:03your standard 2D sketching. So make sure
25. 1:07that that is turned off.
26. 1:12So tip number two is to keep your
27. 1:14sketches simple. You can see this sketch
28. 1:17is a pretty complicated sketch. There's
29. 1:19a ton of dimensions on here. It's kind
30. 1:22of difficult to see what exactly is
31. 1:25going on. Uh we can also see there's a
32. 1:28lot of repetitive dimensions. So for
33. 1:30example, this circle here is a diameter
34. 1:33of 20. We see that called out multiple
35. 1:36times throughout
36. 1:38uh this sketch. There's overlapping
37. 1:41dimensions. It's just kind of hard to
38. 1:43visually see what's going on.
39. 1:46Let's take a look at this sketch. And we
40. 1:49can see it's the exact same sketch, much
41. 1:52more simplified. And you'll notice both
42. 1:54of them are fully constrained. Uh but
43. 1:57this one has much less dimensions. You
44. 2:01can see that there are some icons on
45. 2:04here. We used symmetry. So, I only drew
46. 2:07one of these circles or one of these
47. 2:10areas and then mirrored that over here
48. 2:13and then mirrored that down to the
49. 2:15bottom. And so, I only have one of these
50. 2:1820 diameter dimensions and 18 radius.
51. 2:22And then all of these are having to be
52. 2:24equal to that. So, a lot less
53. 2:27dimensions, a lot less features, and
54. 2:30much simpler to kind of figure out
55. 2:32what's going on.
56. 2:34Another tip with sketches is instead of
57. 2:37creating a bunch of dimensions. So, for
58. 2:39example, I'll just sketch over here. If
59. 2:42I have multiple circles like so,
60. 2:47I'll dimension
61. 2:50these circles here. We'll make that 25
62. 2:53and we'll make this 145. If I want these
63. 2:57to be the same, instead of dimensioning
64. 3:00these,
65. 3:02I'll use constraints. So, I'll come up
66. 3:04here and say equal. And I want that
67. 3:07circle and that circle to be equal. And
68. 3:10I want that circle and that circle to be
69. 3:12equal. And now if we were to change that
70. 3:15from 25 to 10, we can see that both of
71. 3:19those circles change. So instead of
72. 3:22having a bunch of different dimensions
73. 3:25all over your drawing, you're driving
74. 3:28just two dimensions in this case. Let's
75. 3:30go from 45 to 25.
76. 3:33And all of the other circles will update
77. 3:35accordingly.
78. 3:38Tip number three is to name your
79. 3:40sketches or other features in your
80. 3:42timeline. So you'll notice if I expand
81. 3:45open my sketches, I just see sketch 1 2
82. 3:483 4 etc. And on this model here, as I
83. 3:53step through my timeline, we can see
84. 3:55like this first sketch right here kind
85. 3:58of defines the overall shape of this
86. 4:01cylinder. So you can rightclick and
87. 4:05rename your sketches.
88. 4:07So let's call this cylinder
89. 4:11profile.
90. 4:13And now what that means is like when
91. 4:15you're hovering over your sketches and
92. 4:18features, you can see they're just
93. 4:19called sketch 2, sketch three. But now
94. 4:22if I hover over this one, I can see that
95. 4:23that's the cylinder profile. If I hover
96. 4:26over this one, that's kind of like the
97. 4:28rectangular profile. So, I'll rightclick
98. 4:30there and say rename and let's just call
99. 4:34that rectangular profile.
100. 4:37Same thing with like features. If I
101. 4:39double click on this fillet, I can see
102. 4:42that those are kind of the main
103. 4:45fillets on the rectangle. So, I'll go
104. 4:48ahead and rename that and I'll just call
105. 4:51those rectangle
106. 4:54large fillet or something like that. And
107. 4:57this allows me to quickly go through my
108. 5:01timeline and see, okay, that's the
109. 5:02rectangular profile. Okay, these are the
110. 5:05the large fillets on that rectangle. Uh
111. 5:08these, you know, obviously are the
112. 5:10holes. Um and then I can figure out what
113. 5:14these features are. So this is the slot
114. 5:16profile. So let me go ahead and uh
115. 5:19rename that. I'll just call that slot
116. 5:22profile.
117. 5:24And you can see how it's naming the
118. 5:26sketches in my folder over here also.
119. 5:32And that's just almost kind of like if
120. 5:34you were, you know, doing code
121. 5:36programming where you kind of comment
122. 5:38this section of the code is doing this
123. 5:40and this section of the code is doing
124. 5:42that. You're kind of doing the same
125. 5:43thing here. You're kind of telling
126. 5:45yourself what what do these sketches do?
127. 5:48Well, this is the cylindrical profile
128. 5:50sketch. This is the rectangular profile
129. 5:52sketch, etc. It really does help you
130. 5:55figure out the design if you were to
131. 5:58come back to this like a month from now
132. 5:59or six months from now or a year from
133. 6:01now. This allows you to really quickly
134. 6:04come into your sketches and say, "Oh, I
135. 6:06want to edit my slot profile,
136. 6:09make a change. You maybe change this
137. 6:11from 8 mm to 7 mm
138. 6:17and it updates your model and you didn't
139. 6:20have to hunt through your timeline or
140. 6:22anything like that. So naming sketches
141. 6:24and features really does help. Tip
142. 6:28number four is to use the S key, which
143. 6:31is the shortcut key. So if I hit S,
144. 6:35you'll notice I get this design
145. 6:37shortcuts that appears. And there's a
146. 6:40couple little icons in here. But the key
147. 6:42thing in here is this search. And you
148. 6:46can search for any command. So, for
149. 6:48example, if I want to search for
150. 6:49chamfer, I just start typing in ch and
151. 6:53there is all of the commands that have
152. 6:56ch in them. And obviously, chamfer is
153. 6:59right there at the top. And I can run
154. 7:01that command right from that menu. So, I
155. 7:04didn't have to go find it up here.
156. 7:09The other cool thing about this, I'll
157. 7:11hit the S key again. we'll do a search
158. 7:14for chamfer
159. 7:16is you can hit this little arrow right
160. 7:18here and it'll add it into your design
161. 7:21shortcuts.
162. 7:23So, I like to use the chamfer command. I
163. 7:26might also um like to use the offset
164. 7:30command. So, I'll start to search for
165. 7:32offset face and I'll go ahead and add
166. 7:36that there. Um I also want to be able to
167. 7:40change my materials. So, I'll start
168. 7:42typing in material.
169. 7:44And there's my physical materials. So, I
170. 7:47might add that in there. And so, you can
171. 7:50see I can add all of these commands. And
172. 7:53now, it doesn't matter where I'm at. I
173. 7:55can hit my S key. And now I can run my
174. 7:58chamfer command. I can run my offset
175. 8:00face command. I can run my physical
176. 8:02material command. So, there's chamfer. I
177. 8:06can go ahead and click on an edge and
178. 8:08start to create a chamfer, for example,
179. 8:10and not have to find it up in the menu
180. 8:14or hit the physical material and it'll
181. 8:18bring up my physical material command.
182. 8:22The other neat thing about the S key is
183. 8:24it works in any environment. So, I'll
184. 8:27come back in here to my sketches. I'll
185. 8:29hit the S key and you'll notice that I
186. 8:33have sketch shortcuts. So I have the
187. 8:37shortcut commands in my sketch
188. 8:39environment, in my design environment,
189. 8:41in my drawing environment, in my CAM
190. 8:44environment, etc. So I could, you can
191. 8:47see I have line, rectangle, circle,
192. 8:49trim, pattern. Um, so I could do a
193. 8:53search for um midpoint. So I just start
194. 8:56typing in midpoint.
195. 8:58I'll go ahead and add that in there. And
196. 9:00I now have, you know, the midpoint
197. 9:02constraint right there at my shortcut
198. 9:05key
199. 9:08instead of having to come up to the
200. 9:10menu. Uh, same thing with like maybe
201. 9:12dimension. So, I'll start doing sketch
202. 9:14dimension. Let's add that in there. And
203. 9:16there it is. So, again, this shortcut
204. 9:19exists in many different environments.
205. 9:23Tip number five I see all the time where
206. 9:26somebody will be inside of a command. So
207. 9:29for example like draft and I'll specify
208. 9:32my pole direction being this top plane
209. 9:36and then I'll spend a lot of time
210. 9:38selecting all of the regions or the
211. 9:41faces that I want to select for the
212. 9:45faces that I want to draft. And then I
213. 9:46realize, oh, you know what? I actually
214. 9:49wanted to pick this bottom face as my
215. 9:55pull direction. So they'll actually
216. 9:57cancel the command and start all over.
217. 10:00You do not need to do that. So let me do
218. 10:04this again. I'll show you. I'll go ahead
219. 10:05and select that top face and then all of
220. 10:08these regions. So this is what I've
221. 10:11selected and I realized wrong pole
222. 10:13direction. All you have to do is hit
223. 10:15this little X next to what you've
224. 10:19selected. So, if I hit this X right
225. 10:21here, you'll notice that it cleared that
226. 10:25pole direction selection.
227. 10:28And then I can come down here and click
228. 10:30on that face.
229. 10:34And now it's selected that face for my
230. 10:36pull direction. And now when we add the
231. 10:39the draft, you can see that it's
232. 10:41actually drafting from that bottom face.
233. 10:45I could also come in here and hit the X
234. 10:48next to these faces here,
235. 10:51clear that selection, and say I want to
236. 10:55draft, for example, that face there. So
237. 10:58you do not need to cancel
238. 11:01the command.
239. 11:03I'll set my pull direction to be that
240. 11:05face. And now you can see it's drafting
241. 11:09off of this face here. So I see that all
242. 11:13the time. People will just cancel a
243. 11:14whole command. All you have to do is hit
244. 11:17the X. And that exists in a lot of the
245. 11:20commands.
246. 11:23Tip number six has to do with the undo
247. 11:25command and specifically the undo pulld
248. 11:29down. So, you'll notice here is this
249. 11:32undo command, but there's a little arrow
250. 11:35right here. And if I click on that, you
251. 11:38can see all of the commands that I've
252. 11:41done
253. 11:42to create this design.
254. 11:46So, you'll notice it says the last thing
255. 11:48is undo finish sketch. So, if I click on
256. 11:51that, it just undid one step. And if I
257. 11:56click on that again, it undid another
258. 11:58step. And so it's doing one step at a
259. 12:00time.
260. 12:02Okay. So I'm going to go ahead and redo
261. 12:05all of those.
262. 12:08So the tip I wanted to show here is
263. 12:11let's say I wanted to get rid of
264. 12:13everything that I did to create these
265. 12:15notches down here. I can click on this
266. 12:19down arrow. And here you can see, okay,
267. 12:23I did some, you know, I finished my
268. 12:25sketch. I did the extrude.
269. 12:28Uh, here's some dimensions. I added some
270. 12:30equal constraints. I drew the
271. 12:32rectangles. Here's where I created that
272. 12:35sketch. So, we can see I created a hole
273. 12:38here. Then, I created the sketch.
274. 12:42Then, I drew the two rectangles. So, I
275. 12:45can see all the way back here is where I
276. 12:48created that sketch. So, watch what
277. 12:49happens if I click here. It's going to
278. 12:52undo all the way back.
279. 12:54And we're back to the body before we
280. 12:56created that sketch with those
281. 12:58rectangles. And I didn't have to click
282. 13:00multiple times on the undo.
283. 13:05Same thing with the redo. If I click
284. 13:06this little down arrow, I can actually
285. 13:08redo all the way back
286. 13:12to this extrude, for example. So, I'm
287. 13:15going to It's going to redo the sketch.
288. 13:17It's going to redo the rectangles, and
289. 13:19it's going to create those equal
290. 13:21constraints. It's going to add in those
291. 13:22dimensions
292. 13:24and it will finish the sketch and it'll
293. 13:26redo that that extrude. So this little
294. 13:29pull down is very handy.
295. 13:32A bonus tip is I tend to click on the
296. 13:35down arrow and actually click on the
297. 13:38command that I want to undo.
298. 13:41That way I'm visually seeing yes, I'm
299. 13:44wanting to undo the extrude or I'm
300. 13:47wanting to undo a dimension or something
301. 13:49like that. Whereas if I just click here,
302. 13:52I mean it is telling me what it is. Um,
303. 13:54but I'm I want to visually see what's
304. 13:57going on.
305. 13:59So tip number seven I also see all the
306. 14:01time. This one you have to be really
307. 14:04careful about. And that is don't undo
308. 14:07unless you mean it. And what I mean by
309. 14:09that is I'll see somebody they'll select
310. 14:11a face like this and like, oh, I didn't
311. 14:14mean to select that face. So, they'll
312. 14:16come over here and they'll hit undo. And
313. 14:19look what happened.
314. 14:21It didn't undo their selection. It
315. 14:24actually undid the last step that they
316. 14:27did, which happened to be the extrude of
317. 14:31these rectangles.
318. 14:33And you might not notice that if you're
319. 14:35like zoomed up or in a different area,
320. 14:38you know, and you like click this face
321. 14:39and you're like, "Oh, I didn't mean to
322. 14:40click that." And you hit undo. And then
323. 14:42you continue working on and you start
324. 14:43doing other things like adding fillets
325. 14:46or whatever, you know, blah blah blah.
326. 14:48All of a sudden your design looks
327. 14:50different than you expected. It's
328. 14:53because you hit the undo command.
329. 14:56So again, be cautious, be careful with
330. 15:00the undo command. Okay? So make sure
331. 15:05when you are saying undo, you're
332. 15:07visually seeing what's going on.
333. 15:11Um, let me go. Whoops. I'll say uh to
334. 15:14object
335. 15:17say okay. Tip number eight is probably
336. 15:20my favorite tip. I use this all the time
337. 15:23and that is the right click menu. They
338. 15:26it shows you the commands that make
339. 15:28sense. So, for example, if I click this
340. 15:31edge and I right mouse click, it shows
341. 15:35me because it's an edge, you could fill
342. 15:37it or chamfer that edge. And I'm not
343. 15:40having to find that command in the menu.
344. 15:43And here's a prime example. I see this
345. 15:45all the time. Um, when I'm teaching my
346. 15:48classes, somebody's like, "Okay, I want
347. 15:49to create a fillet." So, they'll come up
348. 15:51to the create menu and they'll spend all
349. 15:54this time looking for fillet. And so,
350. 15:56they're like, "I want to create a
351. 15:57fillet. Fillet. fill it. Fill it. They
352. 16:00Oh, here's boundary fill, but they spend
353. 16:02all this time looking for the command of
354. 16:04fill it. Well, it's actually under
355. 16:06modify, right? You're modifying your
356. 16:08design.
357. 16:10So, as you're using Fusion, I tend to
358. 16:14like to pre-seelelect things and then
359. 16:16right mouse click. Pre-select an edge,
360. 16:19right mouse click. It shows you you can
361. 16:22fill it or chamfer. Pre-select a face,
362. 16:25right mouse click. Notice this time you
363. 16:28don't see fillet or chamfer. You can
364. 16:31create a sketch on that face. You could
365. 16:34extrude that face. You could create an
366. 16:35offset plane. Or you could shell that
367. 16:38face. But I use this all the time. So
368. 16:41for example, if I want to put a notch in
369. 16:44here, I'll just click that face, right
370. 16:45mouse click, and say create sketch. And
371. 16:49we now have put a piece of paper or a
372. 16:51sketch right on that front face.
373. 16:57Then I can come in here and say center
374. 17:00rectangle. It's going to catch to the
375. 17:02center like so. And here is tip number
376. 17:07nine.
377. 17:09You'll notice that the field for the
378. 17:13height [sighs] is highlighted in blue.
379. 17:16You do not need to select what's in
380. 17:20there and delete it. I see this all the
381. 17:23time where people will move their their
382. 17:27cursor and highlight in there or they'll
383. 17:31hit the backspace key like so and then
384. 17:34start typing in what they want it to be.
385. 17:37You do not need to do that. Okay.
386. 17:41So, I'm going to do my rectangle again.
387. 17:44If it's highlighted in blue, all you
388. 17:46have to do is start typing.
389. 17:49I'll hit the tab key to go to that other
390. 17:51field. You'll notice the whole thing's
391. 17:53highlighted. I don't even have to worry
392. 17:55about the units. I'm just going to type
393. 17:57in 25
394. 17:59and hit enter and it fills that in.
395. 18:05Same thing with other commands.
396. 18:09If I start to extrude,
397. 18:12you'll notice that that field is totally
398. 18:14highlighted in blue. I don't need to
399. 18:16come in here and go to the left of my
400. 18:20millimeters and hit backspace and then
401. 18:23say minus 2.5. You don't need to do
402. 18:26that. Okay? All you have to do is just
403. 18:31start typing. So, I'm going to say
404. 18:32extrude and I'm going to say, you know,
405. 18:35minus 6
406. 18:37and hit enter. And there we go.
407. 18:41And tip number 10 is to control your
408. 18:44selections with the control key. And
409. 18:47what I mean by that is
410. 18:50if I come in here and I want to fill it
411. 18:52this edge, I'll go ahead and pre-select
412. 18:54it and say fill it. And I like to start
413. 18:58to drag to visually see what that looks
414. 19:00like. Well, then I can hold down my
415. 19:02control key. And you'll notice if I
416. 19:04don't move my cursor, it says hold
417. 19:06control to modify selection. So, I'm
418. 19:10going to hold down my control key, and
419. 19:13then I can click on that edge there, and
420. 19:15I've just added in that second edge.
421. 19:18I'll hold down my control key again, and
422. 19:20I can just click to my heart's content
423. 19:23and select multiple edges. And I'm
424. 19:26controlling my selection using the
425. 19:30control key.
426. 19:32If I hold down my control key while I'm
427. 19:34still in the fillet command, you'll
428. 19:36notice that it it puts the lines back to
429. 19:38the the selection lines. If I let go of
430. 19:41my control key, it shows kind of a live
431. 19:44preview of what that would look like.
432. 19:48Related to that tip is when you're
433. 19:51positioning parts with like the joint
434. 19:52command. I'll come in here and say
435. 19:55joint.
436. 19:57And you'll notice as I'm hovering over
437. 19:59like this cylinder, there's lots of
438. 20:01little tick marks and it's catching to
439. 20:04different faces and all that kind of
440. 20:05stuff. If I
441. 20:08move onto this face, you can see how
442. 20:10it's getting kind of flashy. It's hard
443. 20:12to select. Well, I'm going to hover over
444. 20:14this face and now hold down my control
445. 20:16key. And now you'll notice I'm hovering
446. 20:19over this cylinder and it's not
447. 20:21selecting any of the um joint origin
448. 20:25tick marks on this cylinder. As soon as
449. 20:27I let go of my control key, now it is.
450. 20:32I'll hold down my control key again and
451. 20:34now I can very easily select that center
452. 20:38mark right there.
453. 20:40I'll move over to this location here and
454. 20:43kind of the same thing. You can kind of
455. 20:45see lots of options here to select. I'll
456. 20:48hold down my control key and I'm just
457. 20:50going to move, you know, instead of just
458. 20:53this face and the cylinder, all these
459. 20:55little options, I'm just going to hold
460. 20:57down my control key and grab that point
461. 21:00right there. And it's going to move that
462. 21:03component into place.
463. 21:06I'll tell it we want it to be rigid and
464. 21:09say okay. So you can use the control key
465. 21:12to control selections for like edges for
466. 21:15like fillets and chamfers. And you can
467. 21:17also use the control key for like
468. 21:19positioning components.
469. 21:22So hopefully these quick tips help you
470. 21:24in your future designs.
471. 21:28I hope you learned something new and
472. 21:30enjoyed that video. If you did, make
473. 21:33sure you like and subscribe to be
474. 21:34notified of upcoming videos.
475. 21:37If you need help learning Fusion, visit
476. 21:39my web page at cadedlc.com.
477. 21:43And as always, have [music] fun learning
478. 21:46Fusion.