In today’s video, we’re going to use Autodesk Fusion 360’s ball joint feature to simulate a moving ball in socket joint in 3D!

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FULL AUTODESK FUSION 360 JOINT PLAYLIST https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGgmA1WZESs&list=PLHEouj-sdEJEdDfqwsiKI2izfYUGHi_Mu

Autodesk Fusion 360 allows you to simulate a number of different kinds of joints. In this video, I’m going to teach you how to use the ball joint assembly.

This is a fairly simple joint to create – you need two objects that share a simulation center point. In this case, we’re going to download a ball joint from the McMaster Carr component library. This will give us a good baseline.

The component object we’re going to bring down is going to contain 3 different bodies – the housing, the ball, and the bolt. We’re going to start by selecting these three bodies, right clicking on them, and creating components from the bodies. This is because each moving part needs to be its own component for Fusion 360 to simulate the movement relationship.

One other step that’s going to make this much easier is to use the construction feature to add a point at the center of our ball. We’re going to inference to this later.

Then, simply create a joint, and select your two components, making sure that both components share the same central point. Click the dropdown on the right to make a ball joint. Click ok. Make sure to go into your component list and right click on the housing and select the option for “ground” so it doesn’t move around – this will allow us to live simulate our ball joint.

Then, create a rigid joint between your ball and your bolt. Then any time you move your bolt, your ball joint will rotate. Finally, go in and enable “contact sets.” Then add a new contact set between your bolt and your housing. This will simulate a collision between those objects and keep you from being able to rotate your bolt through your housing.

Now you have an accurate simulation of a ball joint and bolt!