Book Image

Making Your CAM Journey Easier with Fusion 360

By : Fabrizio Cimò
Book Image

Making Your CAM Journey Easier with Fusion 360

By: Fabrizio Cimò

Overview of this book

Downloading a piece of 3D software and shaping concepts and ideas is quite easy. However, designing feasible and cost-effective real parts from 3D models can be challenging with traditional production technologies, or even additive manufacturing. This book will give you the know-how and skills to develop your projects from ideas to physical products, and overcome these obstacles. In ‘Making Your CAM Journey Easier with Fusion 360’, you'll discover how to set up a CAM program, pick the right tool, and optimize production. You'll learn the pros and cons of different production technologies, including turning, milling, laser cutting, and 3D printing, and understand how to choose the best option based on your needs. You’ll also explore the important computer-aided manufacturing tools that Fusion 360 offers through the use of examples and best practices. By the end of this book, you’ll understand the potential issues and drawbacks of different design components and apply workarounds to avoid design flaws.
Table of Contents (26 chapters)
1
Part 1 – Implementing Turning Operations in Fusion 360
7
Part 2 – Milling with Fusion 360
13
Part 3 – Laser Cutting Using Fusion 360
17
Part 4 – Using Fusion 360 for Additive Manufacturing
22
Part 5 – Testing Our Knowledge

Understanding nesting optimization

Nesting is all about placing as many parts as possible on the stock metal sheet we are about to cut. It’s a bit like aiming for a Tetris record where the shape of the brick has to conform to all the others to pack everything as close as possible.

However, we don’t really have to manually orient the components on the boundaries of the stock metal sheet, as there are now automatic processes that optimize part placements in just one click.

Saying that, there are two important factors to consider that are strictly interconnected with nesting: sheet format and batch volume. Let’s look at those now.

Sheet format

Sheet format is the easiest variable to optimize – we simply need to consider the size of the metal sheet we want to cut.

As we all know, paper sheets are sold in standard formats such as A4 and A3 and so on. Metal sheets work the same way; there are several standard formats, some bigger and some smaller...