Howto layout parts on a panel for water jet cutting or panel routing

[TrippyLighting]

I build LED lighting sytems such as this and the last time I had the round white diffuse reflector panels cut on a commercial waterjet cuter.

This new design was initially conceived in Blender (rendered with Indigo Renderer). Now that I've actually designed all the bits and pieces in  F360 Ultimate I'd like to proceed to again have the panels cut on a waterjet cutter. The last time I generated individual DXF files and send them to the company that cut them out of the 4'X8' sheet. However, this lamp has 10 individual panels and I want to be able to arrange these individual panels most efficiently on the 4x8 ft sheet.

What is the best workflow in F360 to do that ?

I know that I can export individual sketches into DXF but that does not achieve what I am looking for.

By the same token the plywood structure that holds everything in place also has 10+ different pieces and ultimately I'd like to be able to arrange these most efficiently on an 4X8 sheet of 3/4 plywood and then cut them out on a friends panel router perhaps using F360 CAM abilities. What would be the best F360 only workflow to do that ?

I don't think that best-F360-only-workflow curently exists in F360 - and by all means, please prove me wrong - so I looking for feedback to develop the idea.

[Phil.E · Accepted solution]

1. Copy the design.
2. Take it apart.
3. Use the Align or Move command to put all the parts on one plane.
4. Use the Move command to rotate and slide the parts around until the best nest is made.

From here, how you export it depends a lot on what kind of software is using the data.

CAM could certainly read this, or you could create a sketch on one face, project all the other faces into it, and export as DXF.

[anthony.graves]

Trippy, right now we don't have the option for nesting built into the Fusion workflow. I know this is an active and ongoing discussion, it's just not on the immediate horizon.

I did want to let you know a few things that are relevant to your post though. The Autodesk CAM Team is currently testing a new waterjet strategy inside Inventor HSM (CAM). We hope to introduce that in the first part of next year. We are also working with the team from Magestic Systems (http://www.trunest.com/; acquired by Autodesk earlier this year) on that, and nesting for all of our CAM solutions. No eta on this, but we are working with the best in the business so I know the solution will be solid when it is eventually released.

In the short term I'll ask some of the Fusion experts to help guide you with ideas on the most efficient way to get the nesting accomplished. I'll also ask the guys from Magestic to take a look too.

Anthony Graves

Product Manager, CAM

PS - Magestic is part of the Autodesk DLS - Manufacturing Engineering Group; along with CAM and Factory Design. This is the group inside DLS working on solutions to Plan, Program, Produce for Manufacturing (big and small).

[TrippyLighting]

Thank you guys very much for the quick replies!

Phil answered my immediate needs. At this point in time I was not looking for automated nesting, but, Anthony, I am glad that it's beeing looked at for a longer term perspective.

Edit:

I see that I forgot to include a link to my current design in my original post. Here it is.

[lukepighetti]

I don't get the sense that anyone actually needs automated nesting right now, we just want a way to copy parts on a grid for the cnc router guys who do production work of small objects. 🙂