Useless warnings

[ltomuta]

Another case about useless warning messages in CAM

Warning: From the highest Z position of the toolpath, the Safe Distance (Linking tab) is higher than the specified Feed Height (Heights tab). To maintain the Safe Distance, the Feed Height has been raised. If you want to maintain the lower Feed Height, consider reducing the Safe Distance.

Warning: After raising the Feed Height, it is now above the Retract Height (both found in the Heights tab). Therefore, the Retract Height has also been raised to match this new Feed Height.

There has to be a set of expression you could make default  that adapts the various heights to the reality of the toolpath. The same expressions you applied to detect these conflicts and correct them. Why don't point me to those expressions and let me use them?

Alternatively, tell me exactly how you changed my heights. From value X=xx.xxx mm to value X= yy.yyy mm, so that I can judge whether I am OK with that. Now I know that you have made changes but no idea what the changes are. Even the dumper post-processor still sees only my values for Feed Height and Retract Height.

[johnswetz1982]

I am going to have to disagree. This is much more clear than previous warning messages. It tells you exactly what changed (feed height) where to find it (heights tab) and why it was changed (safe distance) and where to find it (linking tab). Then it tells that even with the change the feed height, that is now above the retract height and where to find it (heights tab).

Check those to and change them back to what you want to. If you want to you need to change the safe distance height in the linking tab so they do not conflict with the heights tab.

[ltomuta]

But the change is just under the hood, not reflected in the operation parameters that I can inspect/correct.
If I open the operation I see my old parameters. I save it and I get the warning again. Nothing is actually corrected and I can't correct if I don't understand the magnitude of change required.

If they would really change the parameters as described, I could open the operation, see what the new parameters are (some sort of hint would highlight the changes) and I would understand if that's OK or not or would learn how to set them next time to avoid the problems. Then as I would close the operation with OK or Cancel I could signal if the changes are accepted (or not) and if the former, there would be no warning anymore.

As mentioned above, I post-processed the operation through dumper and still could not figure out what was actually changed in it and what the delta was. Leave aside that I should not have to do that...

[mattdlr89]

I'm with you @ltomuta on this. It would be nice if these warnings specified what was actually changed with values etc. 

[engineguy]

@mattdlr89 

@ltomuta 

I think you are being a bit harsh on the software, it is warning the user of exactly what is wrong and it does it`s best to fix it for the user as best it can, but, and here is the but, Fusion isn`t a mind reader, it has no idea of  what values are needed to properly clear stock/fixtures/spindle heights etc, etc within the CNC machine, so it can`t put values in there, it is telling the user to go look at the values that the user has used and re-assess them, if it did put values in there the user would be really confused and start asking where on earth the values were referenced from.

Basically if the user had actually input the correct data in the Heights Tab and the Safe Height areas to start with there would be no error warnings appearing  🙂 🙂 🙂

Old saying, "measure twice-cut once", when it comes to CadCAM then let it read "check input data twice-generate toolpath once".

Stay Safe

Regards

Rob

[ltomuta]

Fusion is not supposed to be a mind reader but neither am I. If their own defaults are not good and my inputs are not good then they must tell me what they think it is good so that I can learn from that. What Fusion gives us is simply not enough.

I said it before elsewhere: if my input is bad, let me see its bad results (in simulation) then I can correct myself. I need proper feedback in order to correct myself. For if I don't simply know to input "the correct data in the Heights Tab", that's why I need software, to help me calculate them.

As for knowing exactly what is needed, how about this:

Any* multi-step 2D Contour operation will show a warning about toolpath exceeding clearance height. Not much of a hint on how to solve it. But I learned that if I replace the default offset from 10mm with max(10; safeDistance) then the problem goes away. How about making this expression the default in order to get rid of an annoyance?

Could it be that similar expressions could give the needed flexibility to get rid of these above warnings too? Would be nice. But if not, something better than just the warnings must be available.

Otherwise the risk is that without knowing what to do with the warnings I will simply ignore them, relying on the autocorrect. And then, I will ignore more and more warnings, including those I should not.

[ltomuta]

Another one:

Good. But I didn't asks for a "plunge outside stock", although that was an option. I asked for plunge.

So what am I being warned about? Is it safe to plunge?

[seth.madore]

The "plunge outside stock" is a known flaw/error in the warning system. Ideally, it should only show when "Plunge Outside Stock" has actually been selected. If the CAM looks right and Simulation is giving you good info, ignore the warning. Yes, I'm not fond of just ignoring warnings, they exist for a reason..

[ltomuta]

As I have to ignore this one too:

Enabled feature flags: hig-styled-qt setup-sheet-viewer tool-library-v4-release
Warning: No ramp clearance, rapid move to start of ramp at stock height.
Generation completed with 1 warning(s) in 403.4ms.

Although one day I may actually result in a broken tool if I forget to pre-drill a hole for the mill to plunge into. Or rearrange the toolpaths so that the hole is drilled after the milling.

For every warning issued there should be a likely resolution otherwise they are ... well, useless. In this case the correct resolution would be to somehow link the "predrill point" part of the operation by an actual drilling operation. Thus as long as that happens before the milling all is presumably safe and the warning can go away.

A bit too complicated of a solution though. So then at least there should be an option to say: "OK, I've seen you, so hush now in this project unless something major changes."

[mattdlr89]

I agree it would be nice if you could dismiss the warnings until the toolpath is regenerated or something changes. 

I don't like to have any warnings in my workflow and try to fix them all but occasionally it's not possible. 

[DarthBane55]

---

@ltomuta wrote:

Although one day I may actually result in a broken tool if I forget to pre-drill a hole for the mill to plunge into. Or rearrange the toolpaths so that the hole is drilled after the milling.

You betcha, and it won't be Fusion's fault either.  The same would happen if one day you forget to rough the part and start with the finishing tool.  We are not yet in the days where the software programs for you, you still have to watch your stuff...  Don't look too much in the warnings, mainly they are a guidance.  I actually look at them only when the path generation fails completely, to hope and see why it didn't generate (not always good here either with "empty toolpath"... yeah really... mind telling me why it's empty!)  Use the simulation to see collisions, not the warnings.

[ltomuta]

Except when the warnings tell you that Fusion modified the toolpath's output so there will be no collision, as discussed above.

My entire point here is that there are too many warnings, not really useful ones, and they pollute the environment so that you tend to ignore them when you should not.

Not to mention that "toolpath not generated" is also a warning when it would really make sense to be a strong error.  While "toolpath may be out of date" has a red error icon while it should be merely a warning.

[ltomuta]

Enabled feature flags: hig-styled-qt setup-sheet-viewer tool-library-v4-release
Warning: Skipping a pocket since the rest tool has not removed any material.
Generation completed with 1 warning(s) in 253.9ms.

As far as I can tell the generated toolpath touches exactly every area of the contour I expected it to. Yet some pocket was skipped. No idea where along the path that was.

In order to get rid of the warning I tried reducing the selected contours more, so that no odd "pockets" are included. The warning remains.

[ltomuta]

Enabled feature flags: hig-styled-qt setup-sheet-viewer tool-library-v4-release
Warning: Drill position unusable.
Generation completed with 1 warning(s) in 308.9ms.

The operation is touching 5 holes. For each of them there is a predrill point set and for each of them the toolpath preview lines appear to show a working toolpath.