Possible to use fusion 360 CAM with manual z axis adjustment?

[buildsbyboadie]

Hello all, so im wanting to convert my benchtop mill to cnc to do small part production, more specifically glock sight mounts and window cuts and such. My problem is with the z axis on my mill (the make is blackhawke, similar to rong fu or jet mill drill). the quill has to be locked or it moves very slightly during cutting operation due to the clearance in the head to allow the quill to travel up and down. The only work-around i can think for this besides making a very unethical and frankly difficult mechanism to operate the quill lock handle, is to try and program fusion to pause after all cuts at a given z height are completed, then i can manually lower the quill and continue, and how would i go about milling a pocket that is deeper than the surrounding features ? could i do those processes independently to avoid the cutter from trying to just travel to its next feature and cutting a slot through the work in the process? i have no problem babysitting the machine and adjusting as needed as the parts are small and will be relatively quick to complete Any help or thoughts would be much appreciated thank you in advance -cody

 

[Reddinr]

I do that for hand drilling tiny holes so I can be more precise with the drilling so I don't break so many drills. I just make the machine drill 0.0001" deep holes for the post as that is just easy to have it do. You might have to post each feature depth independently and hand insert M01 pause commands in the G-code where you need them. That's what I do anyway. I also just recently smartened up and got a little 16 button programmable keyboard to have nearer to the mill so I can send "alt-R" commands to Mach 3 to restart. Before that I had to turn, and click the start button on screen which was slow and distracting.

 

[buildsbyboadie]

Right on. Thanks for the tips. I don’t know why I was under the impression fusion WAS the CAM program. Shows how new I am. Lol So fusion just generates the tool paths and weites the g code then you have to export the fileit to Mach 3 ? Do you know of a good place to reference specific g codes that I can tinker with get the fine tune everything to meet my exact requirements? I hesitate to call it a cheat sheet as I’m sure there’s much more to it that than, but a website or even a book or something I can order to see the commands their functions ? Big thanks again

 

[JimDawson]

Fusion 360 is both CAD (design tab) and CAM (manufacture tab).

You can turn the Z axis off in Mach3 and run it as a 2 axis.

You can always install a backlash compensator (air spring) on the quill. That is a simple and very effective method of controlling the backlash. I use this on my mill and it has worked flawlessly for years.

You can break up the various tool paths into separate operations and run them individually. Or insert a M1 (optional stop) or an M0 (pause) in the G code between operations to adjust the Z. This might be a little fiddly if you are in a deep pocket.

Mach3 G and M codes https://machmotion.com/documentation/gcode/Mach3-GCode-Language-Reference.pdf