Setting Coordinate System in Manufacturing Setup to match the Plasma Cutter

[ecnels]

If the Coordinate System from a Part's Design doesn't match the CNC coordinate system (in this case a Plasma Cutter), it appears that there's only partial control to change it for Manufacturing.  Attaches are 3 screen-shots illustrating the issue:

1) Sheetmetal Panel Designed and correct coordinate system aligned

2) Flat Panel created and coordinate system auto-changed for some reason?

3) Switch to Manufacturing, using the flat panel.  Coordinate System needs adjusting (pic not included, due to upload limitations of max 3 files, but the issue should still be clear - see text on included image files)

4) Adjusting the part-cutting Coordinate System to fit the physical Plasma Cutter table is a catch-22, because switching the direction of the X Coordinate also switches Y and vice versa.

The two questions are: 

- How to think about the Coordinate System from Part Design through Manufacturing Setup?

- What's a Best Practice for this workflow?

[seth.madore · Accepted solution]

In your first image, X positive runs along the short leg, Y positive runs along the long edge, and Z is up and away from that face. What you describe in your third image is not a valid alignment. 

The Fusion coordinate system follows the Cartesian system. It's not possible to have X going positive but Y going negative, all must be pointed in the positive direction

[ecnels]

Thanks Seth!  I started to reply that I know X and Y and Z start from common zero and therefore must all be positive in a coordinate system, then realized the simplest thing, that Plasma Cutter X and Y axis are NOT as I depicted them.  After returning to Fusion 360 to redefine the X & Y axis to match the Plasma Cutter, my head-space issue was instantly solved.  Thanks for the mind-spark Seth!

[seth.madore]

Hey, happens to all of us! I blame it on coffee most of the time 😛

[ecnels]

There are still something about the Design to Flat Pattern that I don't understand.

1) Why does Fusion 360 appear to change the coordinate system for a flat pattern from the sheet-metal form on which that flat pattern was derived, i.e. from the Pic: Panel1Design to the Pic: Panel2FlatPattern?

[Anonymous]

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@ecnels wrote:

If the Coordinate System from a Part's Design doesn't match the CNC coordinate system (in this case a Plasma Cutter), it appears that there's only partial control to change it for Manufacturing.  Attaches are 3 screen-shots illustrating the issue:

1) Sheetmetal Panel Designed and correct coordinate system aligned

2) Flat Panel created and coordinate system auto-changed for some reason?

3) Switch to Manufacturing, using the flat panel.  Coordinate System needs adjusting (pic not included, due to upload limitations of max 3 files, but the issue should still be clear - see text on included image files)

4) Adjusting the part-cutting Coordinate System to fit the physical Plasma Cutter table is a catch-22, because switching the direction of the X Coordinate also switches Y and vice versa.

The two questions are: 

- How to think about the Coordinate System from Part Design through Manufacturing Setup?

- What's a Best Practice for this workflow?

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I need your suggestions