"Flattening" a 3D assembly for CNC routing

[ksudeadeye]

Hey Guys:

I have a CAD drawing in Fusion than consists of 6 or so components that I'm happy with, but I need to flatten them to a single plane before I can move on to generating toolpaths in CAM.

At the moment I can only see a couple ways of doing this and they're both a little awkward:

1) Make instanced copies of all the components in CAD can basically have the "flattened" design sitting next to the full 3D assembly.

2) Save each component to a separate design and then combine the designs in two different drawings, one for the 3D assembly and one for the flattened design.

Any thoughts. I'm cutting this out on an XCarve, FYI.

Thanks.

-Erik

[MattWynn]

I would go with 2.

If each part were in separate models you can have a model of them assembled and a model with all laid flat.  You could mate them all to a plane, them move them around to how you want to cut them from a sheet.  Then you can create one or many operations to cut them all at once.

send pictures!

[ksudeadeye]

Matt:

Thanks for the suggestion. Is there anyway to declare "global parameters" for a project in Fusion?

I ask because lets say I use separate models that have different parameter tables and I want to change a parameter that's associated with every model (like material thickness). Will I have to open all the models and change them individually?

-Erik 

[taylor.stein · Accepted solution]

Hi Erik,

Typically what I will do is copy each component that I'd like to lie flat, and Paste it as an instance (Paste, not Paste New). I'll then create a Joint between each pasted component and a flat plane to keep everything on one surface. By creating an instance, any changes that are made to the assembled 3D Model should be reflected to the pasted instances. 

As far as I'm aware, we cannot create "global" parameters that live within a project. Currently they are on a design-by-design basis. You can imagine the conflicts if two different designs ina  single project want to use the variable "wood_thickness," but are being designed for different thicknesses of wood! For your situation below, you'd have to change them all individually. This is why in my experience, I might actually go with option 1 over option 2.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Taylor

Fusion 360 Evangelist

@taylor_stein 

[ksudeadeye]

Hey Taylor:

I agree. I ended up going with #1 and it's worked pretty well.

FYI you're video on flat pack furniture design is probably the most helpful tutorial I've seen on Fusion so far.

Thanks. 🙂

-Erik

[taylor.stein]

Hey Erik,

Glad to see option 1 worked out, and thank you for the kind words! 

Anything you'd want to see in upcoming videos? 

Taylor

[ksudeadeye]

"Anything you'd want to see in upcoming videos?"

Maybe a more complicated CAD drawing with heirarchy and parts that need joints.

Also (more importantly), a CAM tutorial. I think a few more people asked for it in the comments. Right now the only CAM video I've seen for Fusion that applies to CNC routeres is on the Shapeoko site.