Getting Started with Fusion 360 Part 4 - Modeling Tools, Cutting Holes, and Removing Material!

what's up guys Justin here with the fusion Essentials so in today's video we're going to continue our series on getting started with Fusion 360 by talking about some of the more advanced ways that we can add things to our model and also remove things like cutting holes removing material other things like that if you have any questions feel free to leave them down below let's go ahead and just jump into it all right so we've gotten into this kind of high level and I wanted to get more specific into this and I may follow up with some example videos in the future but for now let's let's talk a little bit about ways that we can add things to our model and so we've talked about the first way right which is you create a sketch so I'm just going to create a sketch right here I'm going to align it with the ground and I'm just going to create a profile so in this case I'm just going to tap the r key on my keyboard and I'm just going to draw a 1 in by 1 in rectangle and when you're done you can finish your sketch and then you can use the tools in here to create things using that sketch now the easiest way that we usually do this is going to be using the extrude function and so the extrude function is basically going to take a flat profile or shape like this and you're going to extrude it into 3D all right so it's going to move that face up and then it's going to add kind of filler material on the inside here this is the basis of a lot of things you're going to create in Fusion 360 now we're going to go ahead and click on okay and we're going to do the same thing with a nonrectangular shape so we'll just tap the c key right here here to activate the circle tool we're going to finish our sketch and we're going to extrude our circle into a cylinder so we're going to extrude this to 1 in we're going to click on okay that's going to be the easiest way to add objects inside of fusion 360 is just by drawing a flat profile and then extruding them now there are some other tools in here though that allow you to create other kinds of shapes so one of the interesting ones is the revolve function so let's say that we were to draw a scale sketch and in this case I'm going to draw as a vertical sketch right here and let's just say that it's going to be a profile and I'm just going to draw a line right here and we'll just draw something very simple so something like this so I'm going to fill this in so that it has a face and now that it's closed I can finish that sketch well in this case I don't want to take this and extrude it what I want to do instead is I want to take this and I want to revolve it so what the revolve tool is going to do is it's going to take a profile and it's going to revolve it around an axis that you set so in this situation for example if I click right here notice what this is going to do is this is going to revolve this around this Central axis at this point now that's fine but we don't necessarily want this axis to be located way over here so we're going to look at a way to put our axis somewhere else so notice how this tells us to select an axis well in this case we've only got one axis in here so we want to add another one so one thing that you can do when you're looking for an axis is basically this is going to work with any line or Edge so for example I can use the edge of my sketch and so when I use the edge of my sketch right here notice how that's going to extrude that around this Central Point right here and I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to cancel this one for right now and I'm actually going to take this sketch and I'm going to move it over get it away from everything else and so we could also come in here and within our sketch we could just rightclick and edit our sketch I'm going to zoom out so that I can see it but I'm just going to draw a line right here and that's just going to be a part of our sketch right now if I click on finish now I can use that line as a point to revolve around as well so basically what this means is you can use this in order to revolve any profile around an axis all right so sometimes you want to take a profile and you want to extrude it along a path and so if we tried to do that right now with the extrude tool it wouldn't work very well right like this profile would extrude out but there's no way to really make it turn a corner if we want it to go out and then turn so um what we want to do is we want to use a specialized function called a sweep and so what a sweep does is it allows you to take a sketch profile and extrude it along a path and so what we need in order to do this is we need a path so I'm just going to create another sketch right here and I'm just going to draw a path using the line function so if I draw up here and we'll just draw a little path like this you could also use this to extrude along like the top face of an object or something like that but now I can activate the sweep tool and then so it's going to ask me to select a profile right here then I can also select a path well notice when I I do that what that's going to do is that's going to take this object it's going to extrude it along the path like this all right so next up is a function that's a little more complex and what it does is it basically takes um a number of different profiles and it'll generate a pH so for example we'll start with that simple one that we already saw right there so we're going to create new sketch we going draw a rectangle right here and then what we need is we need a rectangle that's higher than this but it might be kind of tricky to create a sketch that's up in the air right because this is just because this is just kind of inferencing to whatever levels we have in here so what we're going to do is I'm going to hit the Escape key and we're going to use what's known as an offset plane an offset plane allows you to set a surface and then it allows you to create a plane which can act as kind of a guide plane a certain distance from that surface so in this case I can create an offset plane an inch above my original plane well now when I try to create a sketch notice how this gives me something that I can kind of align to right here and in this case what we're going to do is we're just going to draw a circle and we're going to go with the close enough method for right now um just because I want to do this quickly but I'm going to finish this sketch well now if we were to use the Loft function so I'm just going to select Loft and it's going to ask me to add profiles so in this case I'm going to add this profile and this profile well notice what this is going to do is this is going to basically automatically create a shape based on those multiple profiles in here so this can get really interesting because you can do some kind of cool stuff with it and so what I'm going to do in this case is I'm going to right click and I'm going to edit that sketch and I'm going to rotate out of this and what I want to do is I want to use the move function in order to create a copy so I can select that click on create copy then click and drag this over like this and click on okay so I can use this to quickly create copies of objects um and this is going to be something that you can use both in object mode as well as sketch mode but for right now we're in sketch mode so I'm going to go ahead and click right here well what I want to do is I want to create a surface across these forms so I'm going to move down here to s and it's going to ask me to add profiles well notice how this isn't going to allow me to add these profiles cuz they're not closed in um so this isn't going to work so what we can do though is we can edit that sketch draw a line across and fill it in do the same thing for the second one and so we'll go ahead and we'll draw a line across this one we'll draw a line across this one one so these are closed in shapes but now if I use the Loft function like this notice how it's going to fill in this surface right here and the cool thing about this is if we go back into our sketches and we find that sketch that we were just working with and let's say that we were to edit this and so let's say we were to come in here and activate the move tool by tapping the m key and I'm just going to make some minor changes I'm going to try to keep these co- planer in here but if I make a change and then I click on finish sketch notice how that surface adjusted because it's referencing those planes right here now let's say that we wanted this to not create a closed in object let's say we wanted to use those line surfaces so I'm just going to undo this so that I don't have any lines in there anymore I've just got these surfaces there is a whole another tool set in Fusion 360 which we're not going to talk about for now but it's basically designed the solid creates solid objects but the surface is going to have similar features so I can use Loft right here and notice how this one allows me to select these edges even though they're not closed in and then it's going to create an object like this now that object is only a singular surface with no thickness right here so um you don't have a closed in shape which can cause some issues but if you do want to create just a flat surface like this this is going to give you the ability to do that all right and then one other function fun that I want you to be aware of or maybe it's two functions when we think about it is the array functionality and so the array functionality is basically the ability to create copies and you can do that by using the tool called the pattern tool and so what the pattern tool is going to do is it's going to allow you to select an object and create a number of copies so for example if I Mouse over this box right here and I click and then it's going to ask me to set the axis Direction so in this casee I'm just going to click on this one right here but notice what this is going to do is this is going to allow us to create copies so you can use this to create copies based on the extents or based on spacing so if you want copies that are spaced at every 4 in you would use spacing if you wanted this to go a total of 8 in and then start equally spacing copies you can adjust that this way you can also adjust number copies using this tool right here and you can set this to go both directions if you want it to um in this case I don't necessarily want that but that is a function that's in here but then we also have the ability if we want to create copies in another Direction and then you can do the same thing right you can set number of copies that are in here and this is going to automatically adjust your spacing so this is a powerful way of creating multiple copies in your model now there are some interesting functions in here for other kinds of patterns so for example say that I wanted to create a number of these cylinders along a path what I could do is I could create a sketch and I could draw a path so we're going to pick a fit Point spline right here we're going to go ahead we're just going to make a copy up to here and hit the enter key we'll notice how there's a function in our solid mode for creating a pattern along a path so what you do is you select your object you select your path and then that's going to allow you to set number of copies along the path so notice how I can move my mouse and I can set this to go all the way to the end I can set it so that it goes partially along the path then I can also adjust number of copies either by using this slider or by adjusting the length that's in here so again you could set this by spacing if you wanted to so create one one of these objects every 3 in for example and it'll do that you can type in a volume hit the enter key and you're good to go so that's a really interesting way of creating objects along paths if you need to do that all right so this video is getting a little long but um what I want to do is now let's talk about some ways that you can remove materials from your objects now one of the things that you might have noticed is if you ever take an object and extrude it where another object is in the same location what you might notice notice is you might get this Red Box in here and you can see that this is actually removing material from this box now this is something that you can drive using the operation over here on the right hand side so for example I might want to create a box where these two join together into a singular object so if I click okay notice how now these are one body because they're joined together but if we extrude this up and we select the option for cut what that's going to do is that's going to use this object to remove material in the other object so anytime two objects intersect you're going to get the option for cut join or create new body so let's say for example that I was to create a coil right in the middle of all these boxes so a little bit chaotic but let's say that we were to do it so we're going to create a coil right here and you can kind of see what this is doing notice how wherever this coil intersects with these boxes this is removing material so anytime your objects and one object intersects with another when you're creating it you're going to get the option for cut now I will say I don't think this happens if you're using the surface function because this is kind of using a Boolean functionality in here but you can use objects to cut holes in other objects really quickly now another thing you could do with this is you can also draw more complex profiles so let's say for example that I wanted kind of an inset in this object well I could draw a circle along this surface and notice how I can select this and it split this up which is perfect so I can use this in order to remove the material on this object using that cut functionality and so one place this gets interesting is you can also use this as a part of the revolve function so let let's say for example that I wanted to create a plane that was perpendicular with this object what I'm going to do is I'm going to construct a tangent plane on this object right here and then from there I'm going to create an offset plane in the middle of this object by the way if you know an easier or faster way to do that let me know but I'm going to go ahead and click on okay and then this plane right here under construction I'm going to go ahead and hide cuz I don't need it right right now and so what I want to do is I want to create a sketch on this surface and I just want to draw a rectangle like this but then I want to take that rectangle and I want to create an array of rectangles so we're just going to create a rectangular pattern I'm going to select this object and I'm going to create an array right here and then we're going to click on okay what we've done is we've created multiple profiles that are in here well now we can use the revolve function in order to remove materials so I'm going to select these three objects I'm going to look for an axis and I'm going to click right here and notice how it's going to use that Circle as our axis but notice what this does is this goes through and this revolves this object along a surface and anywhere those intersect it's removing those materials so you can use this in order to really quickly remove materials on complex surfaces just like this all right so one other really powerful tool that you need to know about if you're going to be creating objects like this is the whole tool so what the whole tool is going to do is it's going to allow you to select an object so I'm going to click on this surface right here and I'm going to click and drag this until I find this central point but what this is going to do is this is going to give you the ability to cut a hole and so notice how we have a bunch of different options in here this tool is kind of optimized for creating things for like connectors but notice how I can move this up or down in order to set the depth of the hole and you can also set if the hole is going to have a drill point on it like this or if it's just going to be flat and you can also set if the hole is going to be tapped or not um with uh different kinds of screw threads so notice how I can kind of like scroll my mouse over here or I can also adjust this using these tools right here but this is super valuable because you could set this to be just a simple hole or you can set it to be counter boore or counter sync and you can adjust the width of that counter sync using this slider right here so very powerful and obviously optimized for creating screw holes threaded holes other things like that now one thing that you might notice is if we click on okay right now and you look at these threads they just have kind of a thread material applied to them however Fusion 360 has a tool in here designed to help you take a hole like this and you can actually adjust the threads so I can set this to be like real world thread sizes or whole sizes like this notice how these are all adjustable but then there's also an option up here to actually model out those threads so if you were to 3D print this this would actually create this with these little threaded pieces pieces in here now be careful with that if you're just doing this visually there's no reason to do that right so there's there's no reason to model out the threads unless you're actually going to print out the threads the visuals should be just fine and so remember that with all the functions in Fusion 360 you can right click in here and you can edit them so any of these operations that we've done can be edited but you can come in here and you can adjust the direction of the threads you can um really do whatever you want with this once you've created it and you can come back and adjust it and because Fusion 360 is a smart program um it's going to know what to do with that so that you can easily make changes and adjustments so that's some highle tools for adding and modeling objects as well as removing materials and cutting holes leave a comment below let me know if you have any questions but as always thank you so much for taking the time to watch this and I'll catch you in the next video thanks guys

Channel: The Fusion Essentials

Views: 16,283

Keywords: fusion 360 tutorials, the fusion essentials, the fusion essentials tutorials, fusion 360 lessons, fusion 360 for beginners, getting started with Fusion 360, getting started autodesk fusion 360, autodesk fusion, autodesk fusion 360, autodesk fusion essentials, autodesk fusion 360 essentials, fusion 360, fusion 360 holes, fusion 360 lofting, fusion 360 sweeps

Id: ijIot9aCrG8

Length: 18min 52sec (1132 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 05 2023