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Plethora of questions/suggestions in regards to CAM
I've been doing a decent amount of programming on a few parts, and in that time, I've noticed several things that I feel need to be brought to the developers attention and see what the intent is. I'm going to put everything I've encountered over the past few days in this thread, and I will start up ideas in the IdeaStation if an Autodesk employee feels they belong there. These are not being presented in any particular order, just more as they pop into my mind
Lighting Control?
In the attached pictures, you can see how the lighting changes as you move the part around. This is cool for rendering, but utterly useless for CAM. We need to see edges and points properly, not that easy to do with the current lighting configuration. Any chance of getting an option to turn off all shadows in CAM mode (or any mode for that matter)
CAM Dialog Box:
Fusion has it setup so it's docked on the right side of the screen. Not an issue. What is an issue is that sometimes it's collapsed on the width and needs to be dragged wider. Not a huge deal, but the only pick corner that I can find is in the lower right corner, which means I need to first click the top bar and drag the whole window over and then move to the bottom and then stretch out the window. Time consuming when you have many many operations going on.
Storing last used cutting data?
In each operation for programming, there are a plethora of fields that need attention. When you have several features that are being machined with the same tool and all utilize the same parameters, such as feeds, speeds, arc in and out moves, vertical arc in moves (which are totally a waste of code, tbh) it becomes rather labrious to have to go through each and every field and make the_same_change_you_did_15_times_previous. Yes, you can go to the "Edit and Compare function" and kinda sorta paw through that to find the proper fields to make a global edit, and that is good. But it would be even better if you just saved the last known data and had it already there when I cicked on 2D countour for the 15th time and chose the same tool. (or event he second time you chose it for that matter)
Tangential Extension Distance
Very cool feature, makes it easy to force extra clearance for tools. Why can I not go negative though? In the next photo, how do you propose I deburr this edge and not collide with the walls?
CAM Simulation accuracy?
I understand that it's not currently supposed to be an accurate representation, but are there any plans to utilize a tolerance control over the CAM simulation? Esprit has ability to control the tolerance resulting in faster rendering when needed and finer visuals when needed. Consider the next photo. The first is what the edge is supposed to look like and the second is what the simulation shows. Mind you, the CODE looks fine (I've not physically cut the part, but reading the g-code, I'm certain it's all good) Also, another example of the lighting issues....
Height/depth dialog boxes need some love....
If you select any 2D, 3D or Drilling option, at some point, you need to start entering heights/depths, clearances etc. Everytime you open it, the "Top" and "Bottom" dialog boxes are expanded to allow edit, however, the "Clearance", "Retract" and "Feed" are all collapsed. Open em up, do your edits, click OK. Open it up again, and.....collapsed. Yay!
Furthermore, the default setting are applied each time a new box is opened. I don't want them set to these parameters, nor do I want to have to reset them every time
Stock: Preferred:
Let's talk multiple operations and Tool Library.....
Ok, so the intent is to program everything in one file. Sounds good on paper. Let's look at the execution....
Oh, what's this? Multiple different tools with the same number cause a few issues? hrmm....Yeah, you see, I have 2 ops on that part I've been working on. Some of the tooling is shared, some is not. On OP1, I use T1 thru 5. On OP2, I use T1, T2, and T3. Totally different tools under those numbers, but the library does not differentiate between what Setup a tool is being used on. I don't want my .187 endmill to be called T6. Yes, I can manually change that, but if I renumber tools, it overwrites it when I add another tool. There needs to be some mechanism in place to have the Library use dividers of some sort in the tooling list to allow renumbering of a selected Setup, not a global edit top to bottom
Lastly, lets look at "Save Stock"
Again, something that looks good in concept. Execution, not so much. So, we program multiple operations from the same screen and same file. Excellent. After Operation 1 is complete and I've simulated it out, I'd like to save the stock to use to display what is needed for Operation 2. Hmm, oh, I need to save stock to my hard drive? But....Fusion wants me to save my model on THEIR cloud, but I need to save the stock locally..oooookay...So now the file is getting split up and "collaboration" is starting to go out the window (and really, I don't know of many applications in the CAM world that really need collaboration) But, portability of a file needs to be there for many reasons, so files need to stay together, no?
At any rate, I save locally. I go to set my model in my Setup dialog and...hmmm...why is there no option to load stock? Oh well, I'll just set it as what I used for OP1 and figure it out later. Continue to Simulate, and lo and behold, there is an option to load previous saved stock. WHICH I NEED TO CLICK EACH TIME I SIMULATE. Yeah...not going to be using that option the way it's set....And the g-code is also being saved locally?
P.S, File Structure
I mean, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the ability to save things locally, seriously, no sarcasm. But it needs to be an ALL, not a certain amount. Go ahead, have me backup everything to the cloud, non optional. I'm okay with that. Just give me the ability to save local, that is all. Every job we run is setup in the system with a certain structure to it. The computer file structure contains Material Certs, PO's, Inspection Records, many many different files. It's not serving us well to not even have a link to the related F360 file. Again, now we have files getting split up...
TL;DR, Lots of stuff that needs some improvement
Seth Madore
Owner, Liberty Machine, Inc.
Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick two.
Fusion