Help with Fusion 360

Soldato
Joined
17 Jan 2006
Posts
4,288
Might someone be able to help me with Fusion 360?

I'm trying to design an enclosure for use with an Arduino Nano and software called Deej to create an 8 channel audio mixer.

Basically what I'm trying to make is a box with an angled surface for volume sliders (potentiometers). Which should be pretty simple. I've got the main parts designed (which I did intially in TinkerCAD, which I find far more intuitive for my brain). But I've come to a bit of a halt while trying to add in a couple of parts as I can't work out how to do it.

The main parts:

Two halves of the enclosure Bottom with holes for switches and indicator LEDs:

gkuzOHYl.png


Mounting panel for potentiometers)

rmquf7Bl.png


The mounting panel I want to mount underneath the face of the top shell of the enclosure, offset by about 4mm, which I'd like to do using heat set inserts so I can remove the panel and swap out the pots if they fail etc; as shown below in my terribly drawn and even more poorly photographed diagram:

iYkPZe0l.jpg



This shows the mounting panel lined up with the holes in the face of the enclosure.

KOXRbYhl.png


What I'm struggling to do is work out how I add mounts to the face of the top shell, and get it lined up with the tabs on the mounting panel? I'm guessing I need to sketch the shape on the face of the top shell and then extrude it to form the mounts but I'm running into an issue in that I can't get it to do a sketch on the correct face, and second how do I get it to line up with the mounting panel tabs with the panel still in place as I can't see what I'm doing and I keep clicking and selecting the panel. Can I make the mounting panel transparent so I can see what I'm doing? Or maybe lock it so I can't accidentally select it etc?

The second thing I'm struggling with is adding some more mounts in the corners, on the plane of the bottom of the top shell, that will help locate the two halves of the enclosure together, and also be used, with heat set inserts, to screw the two halves together, as per my diagram and the yellow indicated areas on the below:

f8D77Vml.jpg


uuOsSlHl.png


Again I'm guessing it needs me to sketch what I want and extrude it but I can't work out how to sketch/extrude just a quarter circle?

Can anyone help and maybe shed some light on how I should do these two things?
 
“I'm guessing I need to sketch the shape on the face of the top shell and then extrude it to form the mounts but I'm running into an issue in that I can't get it to do a sketch on the correct face”

Yes you can create a new sketch on any face. If you can’t select the correct face you can do a few things. You can hide the any particular bodies that are in the way or if it’s real tricky to get go to Select->selection filters and turn off and on stuff.

“The second thing I'm struggling with is adding some more mounts in the corners”
If you click on any bit of the thin outer shells face (see my pic in green) then go to construct->offset plane then just set it to 0mm. The plane will be at correct angle etc. You can then create a new sketch on this plane. Tip: once the plane has been set you can drag its corners to make it bigger, expand it to reach all corners I’d say. It’s more of a visual thing.

NR2lPSe.jpeg



Then overall I’d say for lining things up you can:
- use construction lines and points while in sketches instead of regular lines. Think of them like the string or laser guides people use when creating a wall on a building site. Then even when doing separate sketches on other places your mouse can snap to these lines and points. Bit of a lazy way of doing it but it works haha.
- or after creating a new sketch somewhere you can go to create->project/include->project then select the lines or points from another sketch to project/include onto this sketch.
 
Thanks for the help, I think I've sorted the corner pieces now. Not had a chance to try doing the other spacers but I'll give a go when I get a minute.

I'm sure it makes a lot of sense when you get into using it but I have to say I find fusion so unintuitive when compared to the years I've spent working in things like Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator etc. Trying to align items in a sketch... for example, literally a single click in those once items are selected but having had a look about and google it it seems like it's a fiddly thing to do in Fusion. :confused::cry:
 
A quick and easy way would be to rotate the whole model so the plane that’s at an angle is now horizontal, you’ll then be able to select that face, create a sketch, draw the circles for the mounts and extrude them… I think! If you share the fusion file I’m happy to do this for you, and then try and explain how I went about doing it
 
I did wonder about that, but I've found trying to rotate anything to be really unintuitive and tricky to do (I might be missing something obvious of course...lol).

I really appreciate the offer and may take you up on it up when I get a chance to get back to the project, which is unlikely to be until the end of the week as I've got my son today. :)
 
Back
Top Bottom