Since being stuck at home the past 4 months I decided to use my time wisely and learn fusion 360, I deep dived into some courses and have become pretty good at making models and designs in it. Unfortunately it seems there is no native compatibility for the Maslow, so I was wondering for those of you that use Fusion, what is your process for setting it up to work well with the Maslow? Are there plugins or Posts I can get that aid in this setup? I am aware of the unreleased Post Processor but am not sure how to install it into fusion.
Also how do you go about flattening out your assembled models to be cut by the maslow? Does someone have a custom Machine Library file they can share?
Any videos pertaining to the setup of the maslow for fusion would be wonderful as well.
Thanks
There is a Maslow post, available here: https://cam.autodesk.com/hsmposts?p=maslowcnc. It works pretty well in my experience.
For flattening, I group my parts into a “3d” component and then copy them over to a “flat” component. There is a video tutorial on Youtube, it’s either this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHrP1MunhFw or this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYj37I88-4g
It’s a fiddly process, but it does work.
I also haven’t had much success with the “adaptive clearing” operation, I usually keep to “2d contour” and “2d pocket”. I customized the default values quite a bit, but that was mostly to get it to generate as few Z-axis moves as possible, as my Z-axis is manual for now. Other than that, look into “conventional milling” vs “climb milling”, climb seems better for pockets, but I’ve had horrible failures with it for contours (the bit started to “walk” through my material during a downward move on the left of the machine). Also look into the “stock to leave” values, they tend to not be 0 (expecting another finishing operation).
Thanks for the response, The post you listed is the one I found myself, how would I go about getting that to work with Fusion, do I just put it in a folder? Which one?
The first video you listed is the one I watched, I followed the steps and while it does allow me to flatten everything, it seemed to effect my assembled model to the point where I had to undo everything to get it all back to normal. it basically moved the components everywhere randomly and would have taken hours to put it all back. Is this just a fusion thing? Why is this process so weird, I would think flattening out components would be standard considering most CNCs and Milling machines work on a flat surface, with the exceptions being 3D mills.
Please excuse my noob questions but though I understand that Adaptive clearing, 2D Contouring and 2D pocket are milling operations, why did you have trouble with them? Is it related to having a manual Z-Axis? I have Maslows Z-Axis so would that make my results better?
I am attempting to CNC and Arcade Cabinet that I designed so having accurate cuts within reason is important, should I abandon Fusion and use something else? It attracted me because modeling and designing in it seemed more intuitive, fusion didn’t seem to suffer from the too many features syndrome that many of CAD software seem to have. I understand that people much smarter then me use these programs but Fusion seems to do a good job of laying out the tools and operations that are more commonly used but allows advanced settings and tools to be accessed if you know what you are doing.
When you mentioned the Stock to leave setting are you talking about Fusion assuming you’ll be changing bits to do a final finishing pass, therefore it leaves behind a final layer rather then cutting through the entire thickness?
Thanks for your help so far.
Yes. There are a few options to tweak so it doesn’t do that. (I don’t remember off the top of my head, but they’re pretty self-explanatory).
Adaptative clearing never recognized my pockets properly. I just gave up and used actual pockets instead. The other operations worked fine, you just have to keep in mind what direction your bit rotates in, and how that affects the cutting forces. For example, a clockwise bit cutting downwards (towards the floor on the Maslow) will tend to move to the right (the bit “rolls” on the material). If that happens on the left edge of the machine, the chains have the worst angles to keep that from happening. The default value works fine, just be aware if you start to mess with it.
Basically, it’s a learning curve, just like everything else. Just assume you’ll make a few mistakes along the way (i.e don’t start with that expensive plywood sheet), and you should be good.
As for your first question, google is your friend: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/fusion-360/learn-explore/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/How-to-add-a-Post-Processor-to-your-Personal-Posts-in-Fusion-360.html
I’d like to throw this in the mix also: Fusion 360 getting started and tips
Thank You!!!
This really opened it up and explained it for me! Its funny because I actually did watch this video at some point but it was years ago and didn’t remember any of it.
Thank you again for sharing!
Have you used this technique along with maslows Post processor?