Add Real Hardware to your Fusion 360 Designs

It is likely that most of the designs you create in Autodesk Fusion 360 are not made from one hundred percent bespoke parts. Most designs have some parts specifically designed for your project, and also things like screws, bearings, inserts, rods, springs or other hardware that is purchased and then integrated during assembly.

When it comes to creating designs that include these kinds of parts, it is certainly not necessary to model them yourself, which would be very time-consuming and annoying. Fortunately, there are several places from which CAD files for common parts can be downloaded and simply added to your Fusion 360 design.

This post discusses a number of different sites you can use to download 3D models for common parts so that you can develop your next Fusion 360 project more quickly, more easily, and more accurately.

McMaster Carr

McMaster Carr is one of the most well-known distributors of hardware. Their catalog includes just about every type of part you could possibly need for a project. Plus, a large percentage of the parts on offer have downloadable models.

Adding parts from McMaster Carr into your designs is easy. First of all, locate the part you need on the McMaster Carr website. In this example, I will be using an M3 heat-set insert which is one of my favorite parts for integrating screws into 3D printed parts. Once you locate the part you need, click the Product Detail button.

If McMaster Carr has a downloadable model for the part, you will see a CAD icon in the product detail link.

Then, on the right side of the window there is an option to download the part in various formats. I tend to use STEP because it is a universal file storage standard that has the ability to store more information than the other common file type, IGES. Either file format will work though.

Now, with the CAD file downloaded to your machine, you can upload it to Fusion 360 so that you can add the part into your assemblies.

GrabCAD

GrabCAD is an extremely useful general-purpose 3D model repository. It is a community-driven site. All the models you will find on GrabCAD were created and submitted by members of the community. In fact, Fusion 360 has an option to share a model on GrabCAD built right into the software.

Anyway, among the numerous models in the GrabCAD library are tons of hardware models. I find GrabCAD to be particularly helpful for downloading models for more sophisticated parts. For example, when I was building the Capers II robot, I was able to download a model for the Hitec HS-645MG servo from GrabCAD.

Integrating GrabCAD models into your designs is extremely easy. Simply find the part you want and then download the part(s).

Then the model you downloaded can simply be uploaded to Fusion 360 via the browser on the left side of the window.

From there you can add the part to your assemblies or design around the part.

OpenBuilds

OpenBuilds is a more specialized parts vendor that offers a range of parts, materials, and electronics for building CNC machines or robots. The company is particularly well known for its V-slot aluminum extrusions that can serve both as structural building materials and for making linear motion systems.

OpenBuilds provides a downloadable library of parts that includes every one of their products. You can download the library from the OpenBuilds website (the current version at the time of this writing is 1.5).

As the next of the library indicates, the parts are available in STEP format. Once you have the library downloaded to your machine, the parts can be imported into Fusion 360 by selecting Upload from the file browser on the left side of the screen.