topic Re: Turning Tool Model Import in Fusion Manufacture Forum

Turning Tool Model Import

jordanmach — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 12:37:22 GMT

My shop has generally been a mill shop. I do have some turned parts we make, however these have all been programed 10+ years ago by an old employee on old software and we have made ZERO changes to the programs over the years. Well we now own a new ST-20Y w/ live tooling and sub spindle and are now going to start bringing in more lath parts. With this, I am seeing that turning tools in fusion are extremely generic. Most companies offer a 3D file of they're tools that you can import. However I am not sure how to do this in Fusion. I tried looking this up, but I can only find how to do this with mill tools using a script. I haven't tried yet, but thought maybe it would work with turn tools as well but wanted to check first. With mill tools you make the cylinder that holds the tool the "Z" axis, and make the hole face the origin. That makes sense. Doesn't matter the orientation at all around the "Z" axis as its a round tool. Using this idea in a turn tool is more complex. Would I make the screw that goes through the center of the insert "Z", or "Y" axis? What if the insert doesn't have a center screw and is clamped in from the side? I am curious how fusion will line up the insert on the holder? Mill into a tool holder makes so much sense. But turning is new to me, and especially in Fusion, and I am already running into generation/simulation issues where the generic holder hits material while in reality it wont..... Or.... I HOPE it wont lol I just would like to import the models to be certain. Thank you all for the help.

Re: Turning Tool Model Import

johnswetz1982 — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 12:42:28 GMT

You cant at this time.

Re: Turning Tool Model Import

jordanmach — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 12:46:48 GMT

Wow thats bad. My research points that Fusion sucks for lathe. However I was really hoping I could manually import my own tool holders one at a time. I am willing to do leg work, but if its not even possible for the user to do it on theyre own, then this is a Major flaw. Thank you for clarifying. I sure hope they fix this soon.

Re: Turning Tool Model Import

seth.madore — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 14:03:32 GMT

It's on the long list of turning improvements being worked on. I can't give a timeline of when this will improve, but the dev team is well aware of this deficiency.

Re: Turning Tool Model Import

MrichardCMSI — Tue, 30 May 2023 14:18:17 GMT

Has this ever been solved, or is it still on the list two years later?

Re: Turning Tool Model Import

jordanmach — Tue, 30 May 2023 14:51:34 GMT

Has not been solved, to my knowledge that it is. Hopefully its still on the "list", because being able to draw up or import your tool would make programming a lot easier to see.

Re: Turning Tool Model Import

seth.madore — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 20:53:30 GMT

We are actively working on tasks surrounding this issue. It's very high on our list of things to solve in the near future (near future is a subjective term, I make no predictions about "when")

Re: Turning Tool Model Import

eugen.ratke — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 14:51:45 GMT

Hi,

now it is one year later.

Do you have new stand?

Re: Turning Tool Model Import

seth.madore — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 14:56:27 GMT

Sadly, a lot has changed on our priority list in the last year...

Re: Turning Tool Model Import

jason — Fri, 17 May 2024 04:35:07 GMT

Come on - we have just started to transfer our lathe over from a 1993 version of super draft. I'm dumfounded to see you cant put the basic tool shapes and holders into fusion turning. Seriously didn't even think to check if this functionality existed. EVEN the DOS version of super draft could this- its such a basic and fundamental thing.

Ill put money on that when this is finally implemented, it will be a $ extra we will have the joy of paying even more for.

So frustrating- as its impossible to even get something close to a accurate tool in the current setup

Re: Turning Tool Model Import

spano.dom — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 14:36:36 GMT

I know this is an older post but is there any news on this other cam providers allow this but it seems fusion is still lagging behind in this department and were in 2025

Re: Turning Tool Model Import

seth.madore — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 18:37:10 GMT

No, there are no further news on this, but it remains a high priority for us to eventually deliver to customers.

Re: Turning Tool Model Import

bartPXBEK — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 12:42:57 GMT

I can understand that machine simulation for turning would take some serious time to implement, but come on, is it really that hard to implement round boringbars (with thickness) and a holder for turning tools?

Not being able to define round boring bars and apply an holder to them is a serious problem and hinders many users.

For all these years that people have been asking about this, the only response has been: "it`s high on our list and it remains a high priority".

Perhaps its time now to translate this high priority into concrete steps with a clear timeline?

By investing in this and adressing it sooner, you would greatly help many users and show their feedback is truly heard!

This improvement would significantly improve our workflow and efficiency.

Hoping to see this implemented soon!

(no offense to you @seth.madore, I understand you're "just" the messenger)

Re: Turning Tool Model Import

jordanmach — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 13:37:30 GMT

I am starting to see that the Fusion360 team likes to make it seem they are listening to the community and their input. However I am starting to see that this really isn't the case. I have seen many instances, 2 personally where they really value my feedback and the communities, and its HIGH on the list, yet it never gets done. But they seem to manage to constantly change things that don't need to be changed, or add more pay to use features, or break things that were working great. The things we WANT them to change, they don't actually listen too.

Creating a "form" in turning like in milling would be an AMAZING turn feature. Probably the ONLY turn feature we as the community would really like to add. All the other stuff we would put last. SO this should really be the first and only thing they work on for turning in my book. I have always been a MIll shop, and F360 has been an amazing software for me. I am not starting to expand my turning side, now have 2 mill/turns(3 axis), and 1 (2 axis) lathe and I am now really starting to see the drawbacks of F360. This is a feature I had just noticed was lacking when I first got into turning. At the time, it was no bid deal. But now that I am expanding, its starting to become a much bigger issue. My head programmer is starting to look to other software if we cant get F360 to work for us in the turn section.

Another thing I brought up in the past was moveable tabs. Like in Chrome, where you can have multiple tabs open, you can also drag and drop those tabs to reorganize them if you'd like. I mentioned this years ago that this would be a nice feature. They responded to me and said that was an amazing idea and that they would love my input to get this implemented as they were working on a BIG tabs update at the time. They even got me into a testing trial where they gave me access to the "updated tabs" and asked for my input. I honestly, couldn't tell any major difference in the tabs I was already using, to the new tab system they created. They were so excited they spent all this time on this update, yet as a daily commercial user of the software, it was so minimal and meaningless I didn't even notice. They asked what I would change, told them about the moveable tabs. The way they responded was as if I never said that. They wanted to show they had interest in my input, by asking me, but in reality they didn't care about the input.

I really don't know who internally brings up update ideas to F360. But whoever it is, doesn't seem to listen to the community or understand the daily use of the software. There are many times when I see big changes to the functionality of F360, and most of the time I don't see why it was changed. As it was never something that was broken or needed fixing in the first place. They ignore the real issues at hand and what the community want.

With this being said, I would NOT hold my breathe in any way shape or form on an update that's "High Priority" or that they listened to the community on. They are going to update whatever they want to update regardless of any input from the community. Maybe they do fix bugs that I just haven't run into that others have. But as for functionality and features, they do what they want.

Re: Turning Tool Model Import

seth.madore — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 13:50:35 GMT

@jordanmach you are, of course, entitled to your opinion. However, as someone who's sole job is to engage with the customers on a daily basis, I reject a good number of your assertions.
It's a multi-faceted issue. There are good ideas and there are great ideas. Some of the great ideas, while on the surface seem to be quite easy to implement, run into road blocks during investigation. Thus, the great ideas sometimes languish for months/years.
I can say with 100% certainty that anything we add or change to the MFG area is definitely based on customer feedback. No two programmers are going to agree 100% on everything, but we do take the bulk of the feedback quite seriously.

Re: Turning Tool Model Import

harindugamlath — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 06:57:34 GMT

If you need to know how many people are asking for lathe form tools, just google fusion lathe form tools or custom lathe tools and see how many pop up. In real world you need a ton of custom tools or geometries other than standard tooling. What is the point of hand programming when you have a cam system? even if we hand program or create a tool that mimics the tool we need how can we simulate parts with tight clearances and tricky geometry. I bet every shop will agree how many times they have to come up with a custom tooling to machine real world parts. We have no way of drawing up a simple 2d sketch for a tool. Which is mostly what we've been asking. And no way to import any step files for tools.
In real world you just don't machine with only the ISO inserts and holders period.