Fusion 360

[Hood]

I posted a question on the Autdesk forum yesterday evening but so far I haven't had a reply.

My stubbornness however has paid off and after lots of trial and error I seem to have found the correct Tampax (think thats the term )
All seems to be working as I want, codes M41, M42, M43 and M44 are being posted in the correct place with the correct spindle speed range

Here is what I added to get it working.

 

[DAPPH]

I didn't realise the accuracy of the spindle speed could be selected to a single rpm , I'd have thought it would have been a range of three. Things have come a long way since I learnt DOS & machine code for playing with stepper motors & the TINA robotic arm back in 1985

 

[Hood]

The original setup was fixed speeds with a choice of 24 speeds depending on whether in back gear or main. The clutches allowed 6 ranges to be selected and the 2 speed motor also allowed more but 1/2 were duplicated so in effect there were 12 different speeds possible.

I then fitted a servo motor which bypassed the gearbox so that gave me any speed between zero and 2000rpm, it was deadly accurate and I could even command fractions of RPM's if I wanted. Sadly I went through 3 servo drives, they just didn't seem to be reliable and they were expensive second hand never mind new, think a new one was about £6,000.
Because of that I decided to go back to the gearbox and induction motor but drive the motor via a VFD, the control only allows me to select 4 gears so I use them and the VFD to get any speed I want. It is not as accurate as the servo but I can still be +/- 5rpm on any spindle speed I call.

 

[Hood]

Well I have not had any word back from BobCAD USA, so looks like they are not going to return my email so I have just purchased Fusion.

 

[ukracer]

Been messing with post processors today, getting somewhere but very slowly.
Have I ever said
I HATE CODE and people who find it easy

I am certainly not going to agree...especially as people who know (might or might not find it easy. Lol) haven't helping me.

After a few days messing around and totally relying on others to guide and shove me in the right direction it struck me that not only do I not know how to model in fusion 360 but I also suddenly realised you had said you were using it on a lathe and the guy I purchased my CNC router off was using it to create code for that.......so How on earth is it done.
I can create a very basic object and 3d print it using a slicer. I know it's using gcode really.
So a lathe......well I struggle with a manual one so will leave that for next week's lesson

But how on earth do you get fusion to tell a CNC Router how to cut.....I mean a 3d printer goes away from the bed adding stuff.....but a CNC Router goes towards the bed........how on earth do I tell it to do that?

 

[Hood]

Today I ran the first code produced by Fusion on the lathe and it worked well although I am just tweaking a few things in the post processor at the moment

Yesterday I was using Fusion produced code on the Plasma and also the Chiron and both worked well.

 

[ronan]

I am certainly not going to agree...especially as people who know (might or might not find it easy. Lol) haven't helping me.

After a few days messing around and totally relying on others to guide and shove me in the right direction it struck me that not only do I not know how to model in fusion 360 but I also suddenly realised you had said you were using it on a lathe and the guy I purchased my CNC router off was using it to create code for that.......so How on earth is it done.
I can create a very basic object and 3d print it using a slicer. I know it's using gcode really.
So a lathe......well I struggle with a manual one so will leave that for next week's lesson

But how on earth do you get fusion to tell a CNC Router how to cut.....I mean a 3d printer goes away from the bed adding stuff.....but a CNC Router goes towards the bed........how on earth do I tell it to do that?

Well routing is a subtractive process like milling so there must not be that much difference between them ? Doesn't Fusion have a wood add-on ?

 

[Hood]

I have actually just found an issue with Fusion and the lathe. It seems that it takes into account the stock offset in Z when calculating the Z axis position, certainly for parting and roughing anyway.
If you look at this image you will see the part is 124mm long.

I have the control point of my parting tool as the back edge so the position in code should be Z-127 (Z-124 of the part and -3 for the width of the parting tool)

The code however gives me this

So it is 0.2mm further negative than it should be and I have a 0.2mm stock offset set up in Fusion.

It is easy enough to overcome by just putting an offset into the parting operation.

And the code is now correct.

The issue however is the simulation will not look right, for 0.2mm you will hardly notice but if for some reason I had a stock offset of say 5mm then I would have to offset the parting (or roughing, possibly finishing) by 5mm and the simulation would be like this.

 

[ronan]

Have you looked at NYC CNC on youtube ? They use fusion for nearly everything cnc and have videos on offsets.

 

[Hood]

Have you looked at NYC CNC on youtube ? They use fusion for nearly everything cnc and have videos on offsets.

Nope, find his videos very hard to watch for some reason, just get bored within seconds.
I will do a search and see if I can find something relevant and try and get through the video

 

[DAPPH]

I am certainly not going to agree...especially as people who know (might or might not find it easy. Lol) haven't helping me.

After a few days messing around and totally relying on others to guide and shove me in the right direction it struck me that not only do I not know how to model in fusion 360 but I also suddenly realised you had said you were using it on a lathe and the guy I purchased my CNC router off was using it to create code for that.......so How on earth is it done.
I can create a very basic object and 3d print it using a slicer. I know it's using gcode really.
So a lathe......well I struggle with a manual one so will leave that for next week's lesson

But how on earth do you get fusion to tell a CNC Router how to cut.....I mean a 3d printer goes away from the bed adding stuff.....but a CNC Router goes towards the bed........how on earth do I tell it to do that?

When you start the fusion project printing in slicer ( IIRC) it askes you if you want it to be 3D print or CAM … computer aided machining it might also ask you how many positions your CNC milling cutter head can operate at think five different angles is a reasonable number .
I think it is different for using on a lathe …… more like 2 D machining .

 

[Brad93]

Nope, find his videos very hard to watch for some reason, just get bored within seconds.
I will do a search and see if I can find something relevant and try and get through the video

The geezers a bellend too. Used to peddle Tormach machines that are about as much use to anyone wanting reasonable accuracy as a blunt axe.

 

[Hood]

Got a reply to my question on the Fusion forum and it was as simple as setting the origin correctly
What a Donkey

Oh well it is all new to me and so many different options in different places, still feel a tit

 

[Hood]

The geezers a bellend too. Used to peddle Tormach machines that are about as much use to anyone wanting reasonable accuracy as a blunt axe.

Tormach can be fine if you understand they are not exactly rigid and not to push them. Trying to run a production shop with them however is just stupidity, if that is what he was trying to do?

 

[m_c]

This video has a good tale of woe about Tormach -

I can't remember who it was, but there was another video criticising NYC CNC for their biased reviews/promotions with some examples of how the best product they reviewed was later criticised when they got some new product to review/promote.

 

[Hood]

I was making some parts today out of 6mm Alu Bronze plate and I used the tab feature in Fusion.
It is very simple to use, just enter the type and size of tabs you want and then you can choose where you want them.

And the end result, the tabs hold the part in place but it is still fairly easy to snap the part out once done. I am really liking Fusion and the more I use it the more I find useful features

 

[Hood]

Just got an email from Autdesk, January sale now on, up to 40% off. The Barstewards

A bit annoyed but that's life I suppose.

I am really liking and the more I get into the way it works the better it gets. In Solidworks or Geomagic you would draw individual models in individual files then you could bring them all into an assembly, with Fusion you can draw them all in the one file and they are individual components that can be moved as required.

Still need to investigate how the joints work so that will be this weekends learning.

Another nice thing is it is extremely easy to model true threads, just choose the thread option then choose the hole you want..

Choose the size.

Make sure modelled (or modeled if from the wrong side of the pond ) is chosen.

And as you can see a proper thread is created.

And to show it is definitely properly formed I have cut away the part to show.

 

[ukracer]

Just got an email from Autdesk, January sale now on, up to 40% off. The Barstewards

View attachment 207988

A bit annoyed but that's life I suppose.

I am really liking and the more I get into the way it works the better it gets. In Solidworks or Geomagic you would draw individual models in individual files then you could bring them all into an assembly, with Fusion you can draw them all in the one file and they are individual components that can be moved as required.

View attachment 207991

View attachment 207992

Still need to investigate how the joints work so that will be this weekends learning.

Another nice thing is it is extremely easy to model true threads, just choose the thread option then choose the hole you want..

View attachment 207993

Choose the size.

View attachment 207994

Make sure modelled (or modeled if from the wrong side of the pond ) is chosen.

View attachment 207995

And as you can see a proper thread is created.

View attachment 207996

And to show it is definitely properly formed I have cut away the part to show.

View attachment 207997

I have actually used the threads to bolt brake calipers in situ....they worked surprisingly well.

One thing I can't understand is how it's all got from a drawing to the lathe or cutter.

You will have seen that one of the lads on here kindly got his son to model a caliper bracket for me and I was able ad my own threads so that part must be dead easy..lol

As I say it was all square and dimensions with a couple of scallops so I can sort of see how it was done even if I can't do it yet myself.
I just don't have a clue how to get what's in my head now I know what actually fits and into fusion so I can tell my CNC Router how to cut what I need cut off......let alone how to get threads in the correct place. Lol

Seems 3d printing is fairly easy (even if designing isn't.) And the slicer does a lot of the work creating the Gcode not really sure about CNC router although I sort of think I can understand a bit how a CNC lathe can be told what to cut...once it gets complex I am lost again.

 

[Hood]

Had a wee mess around with Links and once you get your head around how things work in fusion it is not too bad.

 

[Hood]

....

One thing I can't understand is how it's all got from a drawing to the lathe or cutter......

You just open the model then change to Manufacture instead of design, you then choose Setup and choose whether Mill, Lathe or Cutter. You choose stock and origin then you now have the basic setup. You can then choose operations to do, if lathe it would start with a face then next operation to choose would be roughing and basically you just step through all the options as you go until you have the toolpaths chosen and doing what you want.
.