Exporting stock, or using different cordinate system for work and stock

[lekonna]

Hi, 

So when doing a second op on my part, i want to flip it over and use one of the edges i just machined as the "x" axis, so i would put that against the vise. However, in order to optimize my stock usage, on the first op, this side was not in the x direction, rather more diagonal. 

Op1 is this.

Now for Op2 i want to flip the part and use one of the surfaces i just cut as the x axis,

however, if i change the work co-ordinate axis, it will change the stock orientation with it. which will naturally mess up my part. 

The only thing i can do is just do a solid and use that as a stock, but thats not very convenient, since, yes its centered, but if the piece is complicated, its non trivial and time consuming to dig out the correct spots to use as guides for centering the solid block. 

I can export the stock, but it exports an STL which when imported back to fusion is scaled way incorrectly and makes it even more time consuming to do this.

As i understand that "stock from previous operation" has been requested many times and has not gained traction, can we instead either have.

1) export stock as solid, which would just export the base solid of the stock ,not the machined outcome, this would help a lot already. 

or 

2) different orientation for stock and WCS 

here is what the end result is that i'm after, done with the stock from solid style.

[seth.madore]

You can export the stock as an .stl, but not as an actual solid model with selectable edges.

However, you CAN assign different orientation to the WCS by selecting "Select Z and X axis" from the drop down. 

If you would like to share your part, I can knock out a ScreenCast to show you the steps needed.

[lekonna]

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@seth.madore wrote:

You can export the stock as an .stl, but not as an actual solid model with selectable edges.

However, you CAN assign different orientation to the WCS by selecting "Select Z and X axis" from the drop down. 

If you would like to share your part, I can knock out a ScreenCast to show you the steps needed.

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Hi Seth,

Thank you for the quick reply. I know i can set the orientation to the WCS, the problem is that this also forces the orientation of the stock, which is not what i need. So if i do the op1 with the upper part with the WCS in different orientation than in op2, it is impossible to have the stock match, since it rotates with the WCS. 

Here is what the setup of OP1 looks like:

Here is what the result of OP1 looks like:

Now for OP2, i want to flip the part, put it in the vise so that the long side is against the back of the vise, thus paraller to the X-axis. This means that the WCS rotates between OP1 and OP2, but the remaining stock is the same.

If i change the axis, it also forces the same orientation to the stock, so i cannot use the option to do "fixed size box" for my stock. 

this is not good!

So yes, you can change the WCS system, but the primitives offered for setting up the stock are locked to this WCS system, or i have to use a stock from solid, which is time consuming to do and to my view could be avoided with the options i provided above.

If i could have output the solid of stock from OP1, as a solid, not stl, directly from the first setup, i could have just used that as my OP2 solid and set my work planes accordingly to cut only the parts needed and do the finishing tasks on the other side.

[seth.madore · Accepted solution]

You cannot export a solid, but you can export and import an .stl and use that for your stock. You would also be able do use features on the Model to align to your WCS. 

[lekonna]

Alright, the Insert mesh way seems to retain the scale and position much better than when uploading the stl to the project and then dragging from there. This will work. 

Thank you!