Fusion 360 - FFF: New Support structures, Print Settings UI, and Body Presets - March 2022 Update

[thomas.stock]

New support structures

There are new supports structures for FFF in Fusion 360 with this release! These are a vast improvement on the previous support structure  – see example of the ‘Solid Volume Support’ below:

Model:

Old Support Solution:

 New Support Solution (Solid Volume Supports):

In most slicers, the support structure is generated on slicing, and the user has little control on the placement and structure itself. Fusion 360’s workflow offers users more freedom in both support placement and support structure. You can find the new support structures here in the additive Tab – Note, you must have created a setup with an FFF machine for them to be visible!

Not only have we given users 2 new support options (Solid Bar and Solid Volume Support) but users have the ability to uses these on the same body as well as specify the particular face they want each support structure to be generated at!

Solid volume support is best for supporting large overhanging areas, whereas solid bar support is ideal for bodies with small specific overhanging areas – see the foosball player below for an example of how affective these 2 new support solutions can be.

Note, to use bar supports, remember to set the ‘Number of support perimeters’ to 1 in the support tab of the print settings.

Print Setting UI

Welcome to the new Print settings UI for Additive.
As well as redesigning the look of it, we re-organised the FFF print settings into new tabs and updated the print setting parameter names. All of this to improve the usability of the dialog.
We also made a few other tweaks, but go an explore it for yourselves!

This can be accessed by right-clicking on the print setting in the setup (shown below), or via the print setting library.

Body Presets

In the Additive Build Extension, it was possible to apply different print settings to different bodies. Now this functionality is possible for FFF too!

Body-specific print settings (AKA Body Presets) allows settings to be applied per body, meaning different bodies can have different body presets. The default body presets for each print setting are “Normal” and “Strong” (shown in new Print Setting UI image above) and you can see just how big a difference these presets make to your part below:

Create your own via the print settings editor.
To assign them, simply right-click on the print setting in the setup:

Body presets can be used super effectively to create this infill model as shown below:

Note, this project is available in the 'CAM samples' folder for you to print your own model of all the FFF infill patterns Fusion 360 has to offer!

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[seth.madore]

Those are some really cool improvements!

[thomas.stock · Accepted solution]

Thanks!

[thomas.stock]

If anyone has any questions, please reach out!

[williamsansom]

Hey Thomas,

I have watched the video of the foosball print and setting the supports. I have a print i need to do supports from inside the hole high up in a print ie instead of setting the bar support to start on build plate and support the top of the hole I want to print the support inside the hole supporting from the bottom of the hole. how is this function possible

[thomas.stock]

Hi @williamsansom ,

Make to sure disable "Project Bar to Platform"! This should then give you the behaviour you want.

See the tooltip for how this settings works:

[williamsansom]

Ok thank you I’ll have a look at it and see how it goes

[thomas.stock]

Please see this YouTube video for the full Fusion 360 FFF workflow: LINK

This does a deep dive into the new FFF support structures: LINK

And this one deep dives into the print settings and body presets: LINK

[jean-michel_legoff]

Hi,
May be this post is not at the right place, let me know, but I guess that it could be here too.

My point is that it is great to be able to slice in Fusion in order to save the printed path with the part itself.
the pity is that in Fusion Team the information is very bad. Either the visual representation that the Print parameters

In fact, we can only follow the Printhead fast move like a cam toolpath.

is it planned to improve this rendering? something more close to the preview in ManufacturingWorkspace?

[thomas.stock]

Hi @jean-michel_legoff ,

I believe what you're seeing is only a preview of the Fusion project. 

Try clicking the "Open Desktop" in the top right and I believe this will open the project properly.

Could you send a full screenshot of your screen just so I can check?

Let me know if this helps

[jean-michel_legoff]

Yes, there is no issue, it works in the desktop version, but the goal was to check if the part has been prepared and ready to print. Especially when you are in a corporate environment.