Milling form tool

[VertexE]

Hello,

I am needing to do a 3d adaptive with a high feed mill.

Because I cant fully define the tool in the fusion 360 library, I created a form tool.

However, fusion says its not a valid tool for the milling operation. I know for a fact it is...

I have attached a screenshot of the error and form tool. Is there any way I can get this to work in fusion?

In my eyes, adding a form tool is suppose to allow more flexibility, but this does not show that. Quite frustrating if I'm honest.

Thanks

Joshua

[VertexE]

To be clear, the lines showing the toolpath were from a previous tool, I need to mill this profile from top down from a solid rectangular piece of stock.

[seth.madore · Accepted solution]

Form tools (in Fusion) are only capable of a small section of toolpaths; 2D Contour and Trace (as far as I'm aware, I've not tested other toolpaths). It will not work with Adaptive (2D or 3D, Pocket, Pocket Clearing). Most High-Feed Mill manufacturers offer a suitable "Bull Endmill" definition that does a decent job of getting you what you need. That said, there is the likelihood of having slightly extra material on the part due to the real dimensional differences between a Bull type cutter and a High-Feed cutter

[seth.madore]

For the corner radius approximation, read this article to understand more: https://www.harveyperformance.com/in-the-loupe/the-secret-mechanics-of-high-feed-end-mills/

[VertexE]

Thanks Seth for your explanation.

[dgoller2RNYJ]

Is this something that is on the Fusion Team's radar to fix?

It doesn't help to have the manufacturer's exact tool profiles of tools meant for roughing if i can't use them for roughing ops.

A bullnose approximation will not work for all tools.

And formtool creation should accept 3D models as well, so we don't need to make the contour out of the models we downloaded.

Allowing us to select the shaft part of the model and the cutting part of the model to have the most exact tool representation possible setup in our tool libraries.

Are either items (form tool for adaptive and form tool from solids) something that is on Fusion's roadmap at all?

Thanks in advance.

Best Regards,

Daniel

[seth.madore]

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@dgoller2RNYJ wrote:

Are either items (form tool for adaptive and form tool from solids) something that is on Fusion's roadmap at all?

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If Adaptive was to support the use of Form tools, it would be very limited in it's calculation; it would treat it as a flat endmill. It would leave excess material where it's not desired, but it would create a valid stock model for Rest Machining purposes. To get it to do anything more than that would be a not-small amount of work.

Form Tool from solid; it's a great idea and one I'm sure the tool library team would be interested in exploring at some point in the future. However, there are several large initiatives that are currently ongoing that are going to take up their focus for the foreseeable future.

[dgoller2RNYJ]

I will then continue to explore slicing the tool profile and fitting corner radii that would give me a bull nose approximation to use for roughing on tools where such an approximation isn't already part of their published data.

Couple of interesting items remaining on 2023 Roadmap that are likely more useful more often than custom tool profiles for roughing ops.

Thanks.

Best Regards,

Daniel