[Kosh]

Beautiful and intricate work! Thank you for sharing what you've done and what the CNCRP system is capable of.

Can anyone speak to the pros and cons of using Fusion 360 to create toolpaths for sheet goods vs exporting to VCarve Pro and creating the toolpaths there? I've already started playing with Fusion 360 but I'm having a hard time understanding the differences in toolpathing with the two products besides nesting, which currently requires convoluted workarounds in F360. Asked a different way, besides nesting and picture carving, it looks like Fusion 360 handles normal CNC operations in plywood just fine so I can retire VCarve from my normal CNC workflow and use it primarily for picture carving.

Really excited by Fusion 360, especially the parametric functionality to easily modify an enclosures size. Thanks all.

David

I wouldn't say it's the best for 2d. Layout and nesting is kind of a pain as you've seen. Basically, you either have your shapes (in 3D) and played out on a plane, then you do a bunch of 2D contour operations in CAM. You could also just do it with a 2D sketch and contour the sketch lines. Can't remember off the top of my head how difficult it would be have it cut at multiple depths in that case, with no 3D model. I think you'd just play with the "height" settings on that op.

[LeeWay]

The best I have found for manual layouts and nesting is Sheetcam TNG. I use it every week for our plasma cutter and nothing comes close to the speed of Sheetcam for this. I do use Fusion 360 as well. Most of the time though, I am importing DXF drawings into both Sheetcam or Fusion. I am starting to sketch in Fusion now too, so that I have that ability. I will not be using it for the plasma cutter though, so Turbocad and Sheetcam are excellent for that.

[dgage]

I've drawn my first sub enclosure in Fusion 360 and while I'm sure I'm doing some things inefficiently, I'm moving up the learning curve quickly.

Now to CAM. Can someone let me know if I'm doing something incredibly wrong or missing something with Fusion 360 CAM? For multiple sheets, do I really need to create each sheet of plywood as a separate component and then manually flip and align/join each component onto the sheets of plywood and manually lay them out? if so, I may look at Sheetcam TNG briefly but will likely just stick with importing to VCarve and use it to layout and create the g-code.

[daniellyall]

you don't need to do the sheets just a sketch of the sheet.

if you have done it the recommended way you nest the parts to the sheet and capture position like how it's done here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0hmB_KKJZs.

other wise just keep useing vcarve pro

[TwoWheelMikee]

@bonesbr549

To be completely honest I have very little experience with sketchucam. I am an amateur furntiure builder and have used Sketchup for years to work through the joinery, nail down workflow, presentation to the customer, etc... When I decided to explore CNC, I looked into sketchucam first. At the same time, I discovered Fusion 360 and decided if I was going to learn CAM, Fusion was the better option. But to be completely honest, I can't quite recall exactly why I didn't like Sketchucam... but I'm happy I went with Fusion

@dgage

I agree with you. I don't not use vcarve at all for sheet goods. Although the nesting function would probably save me time, I am content with my workflow in Fusion 360. It is more important to me to be able to toggle back and forth from CAD to CAM and tweak as required then it is to make the setup alittle easier. Thats just my thoughts on it.

As for as my setup for sheet goods. Once I have modeled the components, I group them myself. I do not joint them to substrate in fusion. I just move them around until I have room for the cutter and enough meat left for tabs. The key is to ensure that the bottoms (or top) are "aligned". This is accomplished with the Align tool, under the Modify menu in the CAD workspace.

Once that's done I toggle/swith to CAM and create a setup, selecting the components I intended to cut. I leave it as a relative box in the stock menu, but I drop the offsets to zero. This helps me ensure two things... one, hiw big of sheet of plywood do I need and two, that my pieces are properly aligned. The hieght of the relative stock should be the thickness of the material you modeled. If not you missed a peice.

Let me know if I need to better explain that.

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

[bonesbr549]

Thats a good explination. When I was considering my cnc build, I tried sketchucam as I've used sketchup for years and feel comfortable with it. I was considering it as an alternative to vcarve pro or aspire due to it being free. I ended up buying vcarve pro (with an option to upgrade to aspire within the year for the diff) just because the features were built in easy to use.

I have to admit the 360 was challenging for me. I have gone back and trying a second time, and it is a little easier this time around (don't know why). I do think where text is involved its rather complicated to use 360. I still can't believe you can't print easily in 360. Pretty basic.

Anyway thanks for the insight.

[dgage]

Thanks Daniel! I was just thinking of one thing I would lose moving out of Fusion 360, which is the very nice parametric feature to quickly modify size. So it looks like I will want to just suck it up and use Fusion 360 for toolpathing.

Now I build an 18" sub and 24" sub so I'm going to want to combine/nest some of those parts across drawings to most efficiently utilize the sheet goods. I was reading that I can copy/paste into a new model and have it keep a link such that I'm thinking I'll have a file for an 18" and a file for a 24" and a third file for the toolpathing. Then in the third file I can create the various sheets of plywood I'd need and lay everything out and setup the toolpaths. Yes it is somewhat manual and inefficient (until F360 matures in this area) but at least I gain a huge feature in the parametric capability.

Thanks for sharing the video. The only thing I didn't really understand in your video is when you went back and forth on the timeline. If I understand correctly, you lay everything out, capture the layout, and then roll back to an assembled state and the layout stays captured for you to move forward setting up the toolpaths. Is that correct?

[dgage]

TwoWheelMike,

Thanks. I think I agree with you and would rather deal with the shortcomings of an app to gain a phenomenal feature such as parametric resizing. I can build some drawings, now I need to figure out the CAM section of the app. I'll see if I can figure out what you and Dan are alluding to in your posts as it is clear as mud without the app in front of me. Off for more learning. Thanks.

[daniellyall]

yer it parametrically setting the position of a component.
I like to build the whatever useing components what are controled by user parameters then lay it out nest it.
I do it this way so I can go from nest to built back to nest. I do it this way so if the object has to increase in size, it will need to be nested on more sheets all I have to do is step back some of the components so what is left will still fit on the first sheet.
then I can delete the captured positions then nest back onto the new sheets and capture position as I go.

if the whatever goes down in size the nest parameter holds everything in position then I only have to regen the toolpaths. if it goes up in size the toolpaths need redone what is just re pick the contours or face.

there is still a lot of manual work to do, it's the quickest way I have found to do it, I have a new vid to post on nesting what is a slightly different way to do it. it's useing the parameters to set the points for where the object is to be positioned.

your speaker box's when you lay them out use standard sheet sizes so the smallest one will fit on the sheet closest to it layed out size. you lock it to one corner so when you make the sheet bigger everything stays in places then you in cress the speaker size it moves out into the sheet sketch.
then you should only have to regen the toolpaths.
the sheet sketch I just do them outside of the components so they don't have any effect on the model at all.

when the cam is done I protect the toolpaths, so I can just play around with the model and the toolpaths don't get stuffed up. if I go back to cam I have to have everything laid back out if something needs changed, other wise if nothing changes your toolpaths are protected, when you take protection off the toolpaths turn red but you can still post the file.

nesting is coming to fusion in about 2 to 3 years unless the sheet metal guys kick up a stink, then it may come in earlier.