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Very basic question on Fusion 360
I'm trying to use Fusion 360 to generate my G code , and slowly getting a feel for it - I'm trying to create some test pieces to see how it works out.
In manufacture - I get the "engrave" toolpath option to scribe something on the surface of a piece, but in this test i want to cut out some specific shaped tiles - if they were round the "circular" option seems the most appropriate toolpath to use. But this time I want to do something square (see pic) .
Which toolpath should I use ?? - is this one for the 2D contour path ??
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Re: Very basic question on Fusion 360
Under the 2D operations drop-down menu, I would use "Contour" for that. I'm assuming that you have already created a "setup" which defines the work coordinates? For something like this I would set Z=0 to the bottom of the work. Then when you create your cutting operation, select the bottom contours of your tiles and set the bottom cutting height to, say, -0.2mm, depending on how flat your spoil board is. You can also specify tabs to hold the pieces in place while cutting.
To be honest, a reply like this could ramble on for pages specifying a whole raft of things to set but one of the key bits of F360 is knowing which settings you can ignore and leave as the default!
Re: Very basic question on Fusion 360
Thanks for such a quick reply - frankly I think I'd benefit from your rambling a lot !
I'm still thinking through how it's easiest to create tabs - any advice would be very welcome ... I find it odd that we don't have a software stream in the forum, seems to be that's where a lot of the issues lie.
Fusion 360 seems amazingly functionally rich - but in terms of user friendlyness I think it should be written FU-sion 360 :-)
Re: Very basic question on Fusion 360
Quite by chance, last night I was actually doing the CAM stuff for a very similar model to yours - a series of more-or-less rectangular "things" - so i was fresh in my mind. To give you some idea of what I mean by rambling - I've run some online tutorial sessions, along with a few colleagues, for my model engineering society. I think I probably took a bit over an hour to cover the kind of ground that a typical Youtube video would cover in a few minutes. I believe that there are a few basic concepts which you really need to get under your belt before you can get the best out of the product which are seldom explained, and sometimes are ignored. The Autodesk tutorials are pretty good, I have to say, but I'm cautious about some of the others.
Anyway, tabs are an easy one! When you have the 2D contour menu open, the second tab - "geometry" - includes a tick box labelled "Tabs". Tick it, and another set of parameters appears. I suggest you select triangular tabs (easier on the machine) and whatever dimensions suit your job. Remember, though, that the tab height is from the bottom of the cut depth, so if you use "-0.3mm" as bottom cut height and a tab height of 0.3mm, the tab shapes will be there but cut into the spoil board! This is yet another "don't ask me how I know..." topic. You can also choose to have F360 locate the tabs for you, or select "tab positioning at points" and just click on the cutting contours wherever and as many times as you like. I can't help you there - depends so much on material, dimensions, cutter, etc, so you'll have to play that one by ear.
Yes, it is a rich product. It's probably true that most of us don't use more than, say 10% or so of its capabilities - but it can do things that some other products cannot, and as I said before, you get to know what you actually need to set and what you can ignore in time.
Re: Very basic question on Fusion 360
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Britannicus1
Thanks for such a quick reply - frankly I think I'd benefit from your rambling a lot !
I'm still thinking through how it's easiest to create tabs - any advice would be very welcome ... I find it odd that we don't have a software stream in the forum, seems to be that's where a lot of the issues lie.
Fusion 360 seems amazingly functionally rich - but in terms of user friendlyness I think it should be written FU-sion 360 :-)
There is a CAD & CAM section under 'Computing' but no specific F360 thread. Might be time to start one?
