Book Image

3D Printing with Fusion 360

By : Sualp Ozel
Book Image

3D Printing with Fusion 360

By: Sualp Ozel

Overview of this book

As 3D printing gains traction, the demand for CAD experts in manufacturing grows. If you're a fan of Autodesk Fusion and crave hands-on experience with automated modeling, generative design, and the full potential of additive manufacturing, this book is your guide to elevating your design and 3D printing skills. In this book, you’ll learn how to open CAD or Mesh files in Fusion and expertly repair, edit, and prepare them for 3D printing. You’ll unlock the secrets of effective print preparation, learning about print settings, support structures, and part orientation. This book also highlights Fusion’s diverse preferences designed specifically for additive manufacturing. Subsequent chapters will guide you in choosing the right part orientation and position, as well as creating suitable support structures based on your chosen printing technology. You’ll simulate the printing process to detect and remedy common print failures associated with the metal powder bed fusion process. Finally, you’ll leverage templates and scripts to automate routine tasks around print preparation. By the end of this 3D printing book, you'll be armed with the knowledge and skills necessary to harness the power of Fusion for additive manufacturing, meeting the growing demand with confidence.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Part 1: Design for Additive Manufacturing (DFAM) and Fusion 360
6
Part 2: Print Preparation – Creating an Additive Setup
10
Part 3: Print Preparation – Positioning Parts, Generating Supports, and Toolpaths
15
Part 4: Metal Printing, Process Simulation, and Automation

Arranging Components Automatically

Before utilizing 3D printing, companies often compare the cost per part against traditional manufacturing methods such as injection molding or CNC machining. When evaluating 3D printing versus injection molding for producing plastic parts, the economies of scale are on the side of 3D printing for prototyping and small production runs. It will generally be cheaper to 3D print a single component than injection-molding it. However, in small batch production, in order to decrease the per part cost of a given component, it is better practice to effectively 3D arrange parts within the build volume of capable hardware such as SLS and MJF 3D printers.

To arrange components within the build volume of a plastic powder bed printer, Fusion 360 offers two workflows. The first workflow can be accessed within the DESIGN workspace. The ARRANGE command located in the SOLID tab’s MODIFY panel shown in Figure 8.20 allows us to select one or more components...