Fusion 360 Tips From Viewers Like You (maybe you, specifically)

today I have a couple of cool Fusion 360 tips for you that you actually left in the comments on previous videos because you're all very smart and it pays to listen to you welcome back to Cloud 42 I'm James I have been completely swamped this week with stuff we all have stuff and this week my stuff kept me out of the shop but I thought I'd take a few minutes and pass on some fusion 360 tips that some of you left in the comments on previous videos and that quite frankly have streamlined my workflow I don't know why I never noticed these features earlier but I didn't until you pointed them out the first tip that I learned from all of you recently is about the center line when creating a sketch so let me start a new sketch here and the center line tool is right over here in the sketch pallet here's the construction line that I use all the time and here is the center line I never noticed this before but I certainly know it's here now so in a previous video I was making dust caps for air fittings and the way I would typically do that is hit L for line and then I would just draw an ordinary line to use as the center line for my part and then I would use the line tool to sketch out the profile that I want to revolve to create a round part so I'll just sketch something here this is similar to what I was creating in that video and then I'll put some dimensions on it hit D for Dimension and if I want the outside of this to be 30 mm then I would click here and say 30 / 2 because I'm actually placing a radius Dimension instead of a diameter Dimension hit enter and now that places a 15 mm Dimension there and if I double click on it it is still 30 / by two but I had to know to divide that by two and I had to think about dividing that by two then when I get the rest of the sketch finished and I'll just pretend I've done that I can select this region and click revolve now I've selected the profile that I want to revolve but now I have to come back and select the axis that I want to revolve it around click that click okay and now that's created a body now it turns out this is actually much easier if you use the center line so let going create a new design create a new sketch and this time I'll hit L for line but I'll select Center Line when I draw that Center Line so there now I have a center line and I'll do exactly the same thing I'll turn that off and I'll just go ahead and sketch the rest of my profile here and now I have my profile but now when I hit D for Dimension if I take that Dimension off of the center line and click you can see it's now creating a diameter Dimension so if I click this and say 30 it's now created a 30 mimet diameter Dimension now it's really 15 if I hit D again and put another one here going the other way well I can't do that how can I do that me do a dimension from here to this point there we go we'll create a driven Dimension so you can see the dimension is actually 15 mm but because I dimensioned off of the center line I was able to put in a diameter Dimension so I can do the same thing here let's say I want this to be 10 and that gives me a 10 mm diameter now the other thing that this does by using the center line is when I select this profile and click revolve I don't have to select the center axis because it already assumes the center axis based on the fact that that is a center line and that's it so I can inspect the outside here that's 30 mm can ins this it's 10 mm so I got exactly what I wanted with fewer steps now is that something that is going to change your life yes yes it is the second tip that I actually picked up from that very same video is about dragging to create tangent lines so if I take this cap put a sketch on the bottom of it I'll hit P for project and I just want to project this surface so I have a circle L for line we'll make this construction bring this this out great C for Circle turn off the construction we'll put a couple of circles here okay now what I needed to do in that previous video was make a tangent line from the large Circle over here to the small circle and the way I did that was by hitting L for line clicking somewhere on the circle here and bringing this over and touching the second Circle and if I move back and forth you can see there's a point where the tangent constraint appears and I can click so now this line is tangent to this circle but it's not tangent to this circle so I can go up here click the tangent constraint click that line click that Circle and now it's tangent so I hit L again repeat the same thing down here and now I have these two lines tangent to both of those circles and those constraints are there so that as I move things around lines will move and stay connected the way I intended now the problem is though that that took an extra step so when I brought this line down here I could get the tangent on the second end to be created automatically by snapping to the right location but I had to come back and manually create it on the start if I delete these though there is a better way and somebody told me about this in the comments and I had no idea that this was the case if I hit L for line and then click and D drag from the start Circle so instead of just clicking and then letting go and then bringing out the line if instead I click and drag you can see it's automatically created a tangent there then I can come down here find the tangent Point let it snap to that let go and I have a tangent line do the same thing down here click and drag find the tangent and now I have my tangent constraints on both ends I had no idea that that was there and that has saved me so much time since you all pointed that out to me and several of you pointed that out in the comments that is just brilliant uh incidentally you can do the same thing with lines so if I have the line tool selected and I create a line and then I drag off of that point it will create a tangent curve or a tangent Arc from that second point which is just wonderful had no idea that that was a thing but it is I might get a little too excited about little things like this but I really don't think you can overstate the impact that lots of little efficiency improvements can have over time if you've been around the channel for very long you already know this about me but for me every task is an intellectual task meaning that I think everything through in advance and I feel the need to understand how I'm going to solve every problem I can foresee before I start so little frustrations and little points of friction caused by tools or processes become a really big barrier for me because they derail my internal thought process and have a huge negative impact on my productivity so little things like this that allow me to click drag and keep moving without interruption are huge you comment on my videos all the time how impressed you are with how fast I move INF Fusion 360 and stuff like this is why so thank you for the tips and keep them coming if you have a favorite tool or technique leave it in the comments if I did something really dumb and there's an easier way I want to hear about that too if you like what I do here and you want to help support the channel there's linked patreon down in the description thank you for [Music] [Music] watching

Channel: Clough42

Views: 21,446

Keywords: autodesk, fusion 360 tutorial beginner, cloud based cad, machine shop, design, free cad program, fusion 360 tutorial, mechanical design, cad, autodesk fusion 360, 3d printing, cad software, fusion 360, autodesk cad, product design, fusion 360 tutorials, mechanical engineering, free cad software, 3d modeling, fusion 360 tip, fusion 360 cad, cad modeling, 3d cad solution, fusion 360 modeling, fusion 360 help, fusion 360 dimensions, fusion 360 beginner, fusion tips

Id: jqC2e3hvqqw

Length: 8min 32sec (512 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 07 2024