I can understand the couple of overshoots and double lines, as I was working so fast trying to reduce as much detail as possible on this drawing in the last 24 hours, once I started having trouble generating a tool path, I’m sure I made some mistakes. I probably sat at the computer 10 hours in the last two days trying to (frantically) figure this out. But seeing the open line surprises me, because Fusion won’t close off geometry if there’s an open line, and it was “selecting” everything just fine. And it generated a body just fine. Anyway…
I do have Inkscape, and have been trying to teach myself that program, but I’m struggling a little bit with it, and I’ve generally been more comfortable working in Fusion 360, but it’s pretty frustrating lately.
I guess I need to spend some time with Inkscape/SheetCam before I take on another one of these, because I lost my shorts on this one.
Thanks Erik! If you look at that image of the tool path result when I tried to select the sketch profile (vs contours), you’ll see that it’s not kicking out things that don’t fit, it’s just kicking things out at random. I’m thinking it has to do with ordering. It’s finding something it doesn’t like, and kicking that out AND everything after it, perhaps?
For example the tree line had 1680 line segments in it. I found that I could not select it, and any other single piece of geometry without either having Fusion hang, or the tree line tool path get kicked out. But when I selected the tree line by itself, it generated a tool path for it in about 30 seconds.
And this is what’s been new for me after the second to last update. I used to only have trouble with the tool paths for small geometry, where it was reasonable that my lead in might actually not fit, and now it seems more related to the complexity of the part I am trying to cut.
And speaking of ordering, I’m finding that “Preserve Order” doesn’t do a darn thing, anymore, and Fusion 360 also doesn’t follow the order in which you select multiple tool paths when generating G-code. When I setup my NC file, I selected my “small details” tool path to run first, and Fusion reset the order to the first tool path I had generated.
Minor frustrations, really, and now that I know how to work around them they are manageable, but I wish I could pinpoint the issues, beyond maybe just accepting that converting multiple SVG’s into a large DXF file can overwhelm F360 (on an older computer).
Having the same problem here on my end ever since the update non-stop problems with creating cut paths that I have cut before with no problem. Been doing this for 5 years and never had this bad of an issue. Has to do with the software update I have not changed anything. What is the fix?
Thanks Dave. I think I’ve seen a couple of his. I’m not sure why I’m struggling so much with this one. Of course, I could never figure out Illustrator, either. And I always had an easy time with AutoCAD. Must be like a Left Brain/Right Brain thing…
I just had a minor epiphany. I was working on a toolpath for another design that I drew completely from scratch, with a lot of small geometry, and I couldn’t get Fusion to select any of the geometry no matter what I tried. And then, after lowering my finishing overlap to 0, it started picking up ALL of the small geometry.
The thing is, the squares I was trying to select were roughly 1/4"x1/4", so I knew that 0.050" overlap that my plasma likes wasn’t the issue. And then I went through and manually selected the lead in position on every single hole, and bada-bing, it picked up ALL of them.
Now, I can’t comprehend why Fusion can’t seem to pick a lead in position on a 0.250" line that leaves it enough room for a 0.050" finishing overlap anymore, but telling it to start towards the bottom of the line gave it the confidence that it had been previously lacking. And to be honest, I didn’t even know that you could pick multiple lead in positions.
So, I guess I’ll just add that tedious step to my work flow until I can find the time to learn SheetCam.
That is what I was finding with lead-ins of 0.03 with a 45 or 90 degree approach.
But I could do a radius of 0.03 at 170 degrees, and I swear that is a much longer route, and it would take it. If I used any additional lead-in distance, it was questionable results. Perhaps a different lead in, could spare the need of the 0.05 finishing overlap. You might be able to use an overlap of 0.01 or 0.015.
Glad you had…some success. Epiphanies made the light bulb and the telephone!
If you ever need to go that small with a lead-in/out, you should just go with none. That’s not practically doable by the machine and will only cause a slight stutter (probably not visible though) in the motion path the machine takes. With the perpendicular lead it has to stop to change direction. With some kind of sweeping angle it can adjust the motion path to slide into the cut line. These settings are still going to lead to a divot at the beginning & end of the cut so might as well save the computer some complex calculations by just skipping the leads.
@jamesdhatch Agreed. Typically, I’ll use a 60 degree radius lead-in, occasionally up to 150 degree, depending on what I’m cutting. The .003 was a mis-entry. I had intended to use .03.
FUSION 360 IS DRIVING ME NUTS!!! WHY WON’T THIS CUT!!!
No matter what I do… what did they do in the latest update to cause this???
keeps skipping over letters…
What I have found is that you have to drop your lead ins down to nothing (I do 0.030” radius, 45° angle, and 0 distance, and that seems to work well, and then I pick my lead in spot on each contour, and try to make it right in the middle of a line in the widest part of the geometry. On your design, I’d do two separate 2D profiles; one for the letters, and one for the shapes. And if that didn’t work, I’d try three. The design I did today had about 100 contours, and I broke that into 5 2D profiles. I tried 4, but it was still missing parts of the design.
I’ve had to do that to pretty much every design I’ve tried to cut since the second to last update. And consequently, I also had to clear my registry after that update, which three separate techs for Autodesk couldn’t figure out, because I couldn’t even get Fusion 360 to load on my machine after the update. I wish I knew what was going on. It seems like my Nvidia graphics card might be part of the problem, after looking around on the support forum.
They use calculus for the math to approximate a curve. That breaks a curve into a series of chords or line segments (splines). The more segments, the smoother the resulting approximation.
The advantage is that any computer can do the calculations so even low powered applications and computers can create or ingest a DXF file.
SVG uses advanced boolean math to define real curves using arc and radii with vector directions & lengths defined. Lots more compute power required (but nothing any relatively recent - like 2000s PC can’t handle).
Do you have a good internet connection ?
I post some pretty complicated design is seconds. Usually if it is slow, it is the internet thats the problem. By the way Casey, I’m sure glad you got things worked out. I will say that my design computer is an animal. So I may be talking out of my hat.
The problem with it is it isn’t any particular drawing is drawings I’ve done before and trying to change the text to say something different and it does this. It’s not just one drawing it’s all my drawings from what I can see It’s something they did in the damn update… It was fine the night before I got the update everything was working smoothly as usual now it’s just a big mess I can’t get nothing done…
They use calculus for the math to approximate a curve. That breaks a curve into a series of chords or line segments (splines). The more segments, the smoother the resulting approximation.
