Layout components for laser cutting

[Anonymous]

I'm quite new to cad and Fusion 360 is my only experience (c250 hours so far). 

I've designed something to be constructed from components laser cut from sheet material. 

There are about 80 unique components with some of them required multiple times

Many of the components have sub components.

The design has everything in place but this doesn't help me provide files to go into my friends laser cutter

My question: 

What is the best process to get all the components i need laid out flat so that I can arrange them on a board and provide the drawing of the board to the laser cutter?

It seems like this should be a very ordinary thing to do but my searches haven't shown me anything so far.

I can solve it by using techniques i learned following the Design a Computer Stand tutorial but the method does not seem to scale very well to something with a lot more components.

Hopefully

Peter

[davebYYPCU]

It's complicated with so many parts, 

there is a screencast or video for a slatted chair project, that uses a script, can't help with where I saw it, YouTube I think.

and when I was learning, I received a video guide in this thread, 

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/computer-aided-machining-cam/layout-for-cnc-routing/m-p/5957323#M6537 

Nesting script demo using components, he creates joints of the parts to the layout board, at the time I didn't use this method, 

I required dxf output, and created or had a clean sketch for each part, copy / pasted those sketches to the layout board as one sketch, to create the layout dxf.

since then have found Fusion doesn't like huge detailed sketches, but it worked for me at the time with 10 very complicated laser cut parts.

might help.

Browny

[Anonymous]

Hi Browny

Thanks  for this and sorry for the delay (I have a day job!!).

I'm trying it today, I'll let you know how I get on.

Cheers

Peter

[Anonymous]

This doesn't seem to solve my problem.

My design is made of individual sub components (about 70)   that are combined into larger components (or assemblies?) (about 15) and these are then repeated a number of times (2 or 3 or 4, depending on the component) to build up the whole design.

The assemblies are held together with rigid joints and it seemed like this was required to develop the design in the way I described

It seemed like I was following good practise and certainly the design process was much easier once I started going this route.

However, getting all these subcomponents laying flat on the floor in the correct quantities is beyond me.

The script from @prainsberry looks liek a good start but won't seem to play nicely as there are already joints in my design 

I'm even struggling to think what a good manual workflow is to achieve this. 

All suggestions gratefully received 🙂

[prainsberry]

Hey i've been thinking about this for the script.  One thing you could do is to make an entire copy of your assembly in the tree.  This way it would still be parametric. But in the copy no joints.  

Then apply the flat pattern.  This way you could also visibly toggle back and forth between the assembled and flattened states.  Just do all the flat work in the tree after you make the copy.

Let me know fi you want me to elaborate more.

[TMC.Engineering]

@prainsberry has the right idea.

I recently did this for a Shopbot project.

I had to go into all the sub components to get all the components I wanted without the joints but it worked great.  

I have the visibility of both the model and the CAM turned on so you can see how they are set up.  

The nester script was used to place the components in the sheet.  I created a layout sheet in the CAM component to help with layout.

It is also worth mentioning that you should go back to the "model" component to edit so you can clean the history tree up if you want

[Anonymous]

thanks @prainsberry and @TMC.Engineering

In the olden days, I used to be a developer so thought I'd have a look at scripting a solution.

Working strategy at the moment is:

- User manually makes all components that they want laid flat visible in the window 

- Script will then:

  - Traverse the tree and get a list of all the lowest level components that are visible on the screen (excluding anything called AutoLayout_nnn)

  - Check if high level component called AutoLayout_nnn already exists and if it does, create one that is highets nnn incremented by 1. If it doesn't exist create AutoLayout_000

  - Put a non selectable board using parameters from parameter list into AutoLayout_nnn

  - Copy the lowest level components into the AutoLayoutComponent_nnn

  - Either use the nester script to then lay them flat or think about alternative strategy 

- User then tunes layout of lowest level components by hand

This workflow would be good for me as the original design remains intact, the choosing of which components to layout next can be an iterative process and the auto layout components can be discarded easily and re run or renamed and saved or whatever

For me this is my Minimum Viable Product.

Any suggestions re the working strategy or tips that might help me gratefully received 🙂

[balunist · Accepted solution]

This is a pretty old thread but I thought I would respond in case anyone is still listening or interested.   An addIn exist in the autodesk app store called MapBoards Pro that I authored.  It appears to be a pretty good match for much of what is described here.   At least the arranging of component parts.  Take a look MapBoards Pro Add-In on Autodesk App Store.

Exports including DXF, SVG and Reports for the resulting mapped parts in the model.  All is integrated into the app.   The documentation can be found here MapBoards Pro.   I've continued to provide improvements and enhancements free to entitled users.

[Anonymous]

Hi 

Thanks very much for replying and for building this solution.

I got quite a long way with my own solution but in the end something defeated me (can't remember what!) 

I do projects intermittently on fusion. 360 and I've nothing on the boil at the monemo

I looked at your solution and it seems to be exactly what I needed 

I hope you've managed to get enough users to give you some reasonable reward for what I'm sure where many many hours of work 

Thanks again 🙂