topic Re: Rotate WCS to mill at 45 degrees in Fusion Manufacture Forum

Rotate WCS to mill at 45 degrees

whoever123456 — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 22:24:37 GMT

I'm new to CNC routers and Fusion 360's Manufacture mode, so please bear with me (or point me in the right direction if I just wasn't searching for the right things.) I would like to mill a part that's too long to fit my CNC router's bed any way but diagonally. What's the best way to accomplish this?

If I rotate the model in Design, the stock is assumed to be much larger than necessary.

With model rotated 45°

Is there a way to keep my model in its original orientation but rotate the WCS 45° when creating a setup? What I would like is to have is the stock shown below, with the origin at the selected box point but with the X and Y axes rotated 45° clockwise, instead of following the stock's edges.

Ideal stock size but with WCS aligned to the model (unwanted)

Is that possible? Or am I thinking about this whole process incorrectly? Please help me understand the typical process/workflow for milling a part at an angle on the bed (rotated around the Z axis.)

Re: Rotate WCS to mill at 45 degrees

AdamKunzo — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 23:15:06 GMT

Hi,

The WCS orientation in your first image is correct. You were misled by the automatically generated stock, where the stock is always aligned with the XY axes. You can create stock of any shape in design workspace that would align with the workpiece, but it's unnecessary extra work.
You have a CNC router so your stock is a large sheet, right?
Just cut out the part with 2D contour (I recommend using tabs in the geometry tab). The external stock doesn't need to concern you at all.

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Re: Rotate WCS to mill at 45 degrees

whoever123456 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 01:26:36 GMT

My stock could be a large sheet but in reality, it's more likely to be closer to the size of the body. I'll consider rotating the body in Design and cutting its contour first but I'm still curious…

The orientation of the part is correct in the first screenshot but only because I rotated the body in the Design view. This is a trivial part but that might not always be practical. Surely there is a way to keep a model as-is for design purposes and reposition how it's laid out for milling/routing, right? I'm curious what a common workflow is if anyone has any suggestions or knows of any guides they could share.

Re: Rotate WCS to mill at 45 degrees

whoever123456 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 04:32:43 GMT

As an update, I was able to keep the body in its original position and have it rotated 45° in Design by adding a construction line to my sketch (in the XY plane) at 45°, using the XY plane as my Z plane and using that sketch line as my Y axis when configuring the Setup's coordinate system.

By itself, that will still create a very large stock, which I addressed by modeling the stock as a separate body in Design. I tried using the larger stock generated when using "fixed/relative size box" and creating a 2D contour, thinking that it would confine subsequent operations. But adaptive clearing removed all of the material outside the contour as well, which is almost the entire area of my CNC router.

Re: Rotate WCS to mill at 45 degrees

seth.madore — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 10:45:06 GMT

Yep, modeling the stock and creating a sketch to provide for the XY alignment is the way to go. For what it's worth, we are working on a nice enhancement to the Design workspace called "Bounding Solid" that will quite easily create a stock model that use the minimal amount of size required. You need to be a member of the Insider Program to access that feature. Membership is free, but it does involve an application process. You can apply here: https://feedback.autodesk.com/key/Fusion360Insider

Re: Rotate WCS to mill at 45 degrees

whoever123456 — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 18:49:29 GMT

Thanks for confirming my approach. I'll check out Insider.