# Fusion 360 CAM assistance needed



## spumco (Jan 3, 2018)

(I've posted a request for help at the Autodesk site, but figured it wouldn't hurt to duplicate it here)

All,

Trying to create a toolpath in F360 and running in to a problem.  The operation is (should be) three simple cuts, using a 4th axis trunnion table.  Cuts are along the X-axis.

Problem I'm having is that F360 is creating a very long lead-in at the start of a 2D Adaptive operation and it's causing a toolholder to fixture crash.  I've tried to change the lead-in radius down to just about nothing, but there's still a long lead.  The big block at right in the photo is a fixture - that's what the toolholder hits in simulation.

I've tried creating a sketch to use as a toolpath containment boundary, but 2D adaptive doesn't seem to have containment as an option.  And 3D adaptive won't let me select the right model contours to limit machining to a certain area.  I've attached a screenshot of the long lead-in - it's the green swooping thing right before the blue (feed) line.

I'd prefer not to cut from the other direction (and rotating the trunnion table the other way) since then the cut will be obscured from view by the table.  I'd really, really like to keep a close eye on everything the first time I run this cut.  There's a significant amount of cash in the part and I don't want to wreck it.

Thx,
Spumco


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## JimDawson (Jan 3, 2018)

Try clicking on linking, uncheck leads & transitions.  I've had to do that on some parts.  Fusion 360 has some weird quirks sometimes.


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## spumco (Jan 5, 2018)

Jim,
Thanks, but no go on the suggestion.  2D Adaptive doesn't have the 'uncheck' option like some of the other strategies - or at least I couldn't find it.

Here's the odd thing (Fusion quirk?) - I posted at the Autodesk forum, and someone replied suggestion setting the lead radius smaller.  Didn't work for me; still had that long lead in after changing the radius to something like 0.010".

Opened the file the next morning, and the long lead was gone.  No changes were made to the toolpath settings.

I don't think it was a screen artifact since it registered the 'crash' during simulation.  I'm stumped, and nobody's offered an explanation over at AD.

I'm going to move on and try the cut single-block and chalk it up to F360 being a little quirky.

-S


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## Jake2465 (Jan 6, 2018)

Fusion 360 defaults to some horizontal and vertical lead in / transition with those adaptive cycles. In the "linking" tab of your 2D adaptive you can scan down and see where there is a drop down menu saying "leads and transitions". In that area you will see "horizontal lead in/ out" and "vertical lead in /out". Those values generate those lead in moves that are not producing a cut. If you just set those to "0.0" , then those lead in should disappear.

In the attached picture, you will see the area I spoke about. Notice those numbers in the boxes? I never asked Fusion 360 to put those values in. They showed up that way. Once you adjust to your liking, then you can right click in the box and "set to default" so you don't have to do that for every new cycle you want to incorporate.


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## magicniner (Jan 6, 2018)

spumco said:


> Opened the file the next morning, and the long lead was gone.  No changes were made to the toolpath settings.



I've come across other (buggy?) software where a Save, Close, Close Package, Re-Open Package, Re-Open File is required for some changes to take effect. 
I'm not sure if this should be valid for Cloud based solutions though, maybe they fixed i overnight? ;-)


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## Jake2465 (Jan 6, 2018)

magicniner said:


> Cloud based solutions



That is one annoyance I do have with fusion 360. several times they have updated the system and I have had to relearn my procedures. I would much rather prefer it when the software can be permanently operated on a computer with no outside connectivity requirements. I figure as long as it works, then what does it matter if it's "out dated"? The computer doesn't know that .


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## magicniner (Jan 6, 2018)

Rental and cloud software is not for me. If I'd been caught up in one of the Fusion Fiasco situations where they broke it with an update and had an "Unexpected Outage" when I wanted to do some work I'd have been like the controller in Top Gun


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## Jake2465 (Jan 6, 2018)

magicniner said:


> Fusion Fiasco situations where they broke it with an update



See, that's exactly what gets me about the whole thing. I think if I actually ran a business that had paying customers, I would be real hesitant to rely on Fusion 360 for job shop work. I would not want to be the person to tell someone that is potentially going to be paying thousands of dollars in service or product that I will have to get back with them as soon as fusion is operable again... real amateur.

I guess for product work it is not as critical because as long as you have the g code files backed up for whatever is being produced, then Fusion is not needed at all. It would only be needed for the development of that g code. 

If I had the money, I would have probably gone with another CAM vendor. I can understand why there are many businesses that don't use Fusion 360 and would rather pay $50,000 for CAM that can be all theirs without someone else holding the keys.


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## Clock work (Jan 6, 2018)

Jake2465 said:


> That is one annoyance I do have with fusion 360. several times they have updated the system and I have had to relearn my procedures. I would much rather prefer it when the software can be permanently operated on a computer with no outside connectivity requirements. I figure as long as it works, then what does it matter if it's "out dated"? The computer doesn't know that .



My most massive peave about the entire software space is the revolving door of UI's and assumed usage models and rewiring long-time functionality under the hood so it works differently and you have to adjust YOUR workflow when they load this new sludge into the most recent release... For like 35+ years, I actually own a company that makes engineering tools instantiated in software and serve as Chief Designer so I have some perspective on both sides. My experience says this happens WAY WAY WAY too much to be good for the (forgotten) customer. We should deep in a period of very high product/UI/usage-model stability for software products but instead we, the customers, have to suffer when some idiot slab of cubicle meat "has an idea" and wastes his stockholders $$ by chasing it. It's like when I worked in a heat treat plant for the summers back in the early 70's and you'd paint the same table 8 times in 3 months. Make sure you look busy... what you do at work is all about how it looks... not what it produces. 

I've seen this attempted by my guys and every single time it has had the same fingerprints on it. The last rookie/20-something in the door who almost not at all understands the stuff you're actually making just HAS to put their mark on one of the products (look at me!) and pitches me wasting my $$$ on them making this crap "for me". Partner companies.. ditto. We don't have the kind of engineers out there anymore that were the kind of a$$-kickers that got us to the moon or started the computer or semiconductor industries. Not hardly. If I knew I was going to be baby-sitting the brittle self-esteem and skills vacuum of too many of what I've hired for the last 12-15 years, I'd have never gone into this in the first place. [he looked up... his vision returned and the loud hissing stopped... as he realized he tunneled out into yet another rant about His Idiots... the Hulk apologizes]. Software sucks today.... not the brainy functionality it's supposed to contain... the way the shovel-lifters who actually create it ruin it. 

CW


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## spumco (Jan 7, 2018)

Yea, well.  I'm getting what I paid for it, right?

Back to the lead-ins...  I set the lead radius to zero and they disappeared - not just the radius but the entire horizontal lead.  All fine, but 2D contour and others have an editable horizontal lead length value, but it appears that 2D Adaptive doesn't.

And some of the younger engineers are grownups at my work.  Not all, of course, but some.  When you publicly point out their mistakes, and walk them through the chain of events where their mistake would have resulted in a fatality or a million dollars up in smoke you can see them experiencing a gastrointestinal upset event.  That's when you know you got through to them.

A few of those and they learn that special snowflakes get people killed.


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## Clock work (Jan 7, 2018)

spumco said:


> And some of the younger engineers are grownups at my work.  Not all, of course, but some.  When you publicly point out their mistakes, and walk them through the chain of events where their mistake would have resulted in a fatality or a million dollars up in smoke you can see them experiencing a gastrointestinal upset event.  That's when you know you got through to them.
> 
> A few of those and they learn that special snowflakes get people killed.



Your experience doesn't reflect ours but that said, what you need for the big company model is nearly the opposite of the small company model. My company is small by design. I've been hiring since the mid-80's and what walks in the door now as rookies does not/cannot work for us (and they make utterly ignorant customers too) and we're never invest even a single heartbeat in trying again (12-14 snowflakes over the last decade). The big exception... ex-combat-military. Unlike the flakes, they "get" and believe in cause/effect. As to the direction SW products are moving, it's just a pity. This should be a renaissance of wonderful familiar tools that have been shaken out over decades. I'm pretty massively anti-technology. There's a principle known as The Lindy Effect (defined on line) that adds a ton of credence to avoiding the flavor of the month things... to avoid neomania. Couple that with the factors that drive system system reliability vs time (inversely proportional to the product of parts count and software system states) and you have guys who own tech companies like me driving a 15 year old truck and motorcycles designed in 1982 and until recently did his photography with film and a Speed Graphic.


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## Jake2465 (Jan 7, 2018)

spumco said:


> 2D contour and others have an editable horizontal lead length value, but it appears that 2D Adaptive doesn't.



It does, simply add a value to the horizontal lead in / out.


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## spumco (Jan 7, 2018)

Jake2465 said:


> It does, simply add a value to the horizontal lead in / out.


Maybe I'm missing something.  All I see in the linking tab is horizontal/vertical lead radius - not length.

If I change the radius in the field, it changes the radius just fine - but it's the long horizontal sweep _after_ the radius that's the problem.  If you look at the first screenshot I posted you can see a little vertical/horizontal radius and then a horizontal green line before the blue cutting path.


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## Jake2465 (Jan 7, 2018)

spumco said:


> Maybe I'm missing something.  All I see in the linking tab is horizontal/vertical lead radius - not length.
> 
> If I change the radius in the field, it changes the radius just fine - but it's the long horizontal sweep _after_ the radius that's the problem.  If you look at the first screenshot I posted you can see a little vertical/horizontal radius and then a horizontal green line before the blue cutting path.



This may be an algorithm issue. You can adjust the entry position of the tool path with some setting in there. It will pronably be in the linking area. Also, some times making a minor depth of cut adjustment can cause fusion to recalculate the tool paths and possibly give a better tool path.


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## spumco (Jan 7, 2018)

Jake2465 said:


> Also, some times making a minor depth of cut adjustment can cause fusion to recalculate the tool paths and possibly give a better tool path.



That's true.  I simply selected a point on the part corner as the entry point and while it left the long lead in, it changed from an X- lead in to a Y+ lead in and avoided the crash.


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