Transcript:
Hey, guys, so a couple weeks ago. I posted a video Instagram carving the steel metric drawer front. I got a bunch of questions on what software I use and how to set it up, so I figured this would be a good opportunity to make a quick and easy tutorial on modeling and setting up for 3d carves in fusion 360 after I fired the fusion 360 I made a sketch of a rectangle on the X&Y plane. The size is just whatever your workpiece needs to be. And in my case, it will be a hundred by 250 millimeters or 4 by 10 inches. After finishing the schedule notice. The sketch is now a surface. I can then extrude the surface to make a 3d block. You can click on the extrusion icon in the menu bar or press E on a keyboard to do this and tomorrow. The polygons on this block is actually really simple. I started by making another sketch on the top surface of this block, then draw a bunch of random lines to create some three sided and four-sided polygons. You can get as complicated or as simple as you want here once. I was happy with the design. I extrude a each polygon up to a quarter inch And then adjusted the angle of the extrusions until the sides came to a point. Just repeat these steps for the rest of the polygons to finish up the model, but just keep in mind that even though making the extrusions taller will make the model look more dramatic and cooler, it’ll actually increase the milling time dramatically, depending on the machine capabilities and the bits that are used for the cut All right now! That we’ve got a cool model. We’ll need to show the scene and see what it needs to do. This process is called Cam to do this. We’ll go into the manufacturing workbench and select a new setup. This is where we’ll define the stock and the orientation of the model since we will be using a CNC select milling for the operation type and next under the stock tab, I chose a one inch offset for the sides because I want to leave some extra material for clamping and also since I’m using two tools to cut this, I want to leave some extra material to calibrate the z-axi’s later Next. We’ll define the stock point, which is basically just the origin of the cutter head. I like to use the lower left corner and some people like to use the middle of the stock, so it’s just personal preference next. It’s time to define the cutting operations. The first operation will be a 3d adaptive clearing to clear out the bulk of the material. The first thing we’ll want to do is to find the tool for the operation. You can see here are. They got a library of tools to choose from. But if you don’t have anything yet you have the option to fill in the toy information manually or you can check to see if the manufacturer have all the characteristics on their website. Luckily for me. The supplier for my tools already have a file with all the information on their site that I could just download straight to fusion 360 for this first operation I found and selected the quarter inch flattened mail from my tools library over in the next tab. I defined the boundary for which the tool will cut within. Otherwise, the machine will just cut through all the material, including the extra one inch offset that we added to the stock earlier next. Check the box that says rest machining rest. Machining is a function used to target material that’s left behind from the previous option, and since this is our first option, just select the from setup stock option under the drop down menu and finally under the passes tab. We get to define how aggressive our bit will cut for this operation. We only need to worry about the step down, which is generally set to have the diameter of the bit also make sure to check the stock to leave options so that there’s some extra material left for later operations and then just click. OK, and let the tool path generate next. We’ll select a 3d parallel paths for the finishing operation since there are tight corners where the edges of the polygons meet picked a bit with a smallest diameter. From your library for me. My Go-to Finishing Bit is the 1/16 inch taper ball nose bit under the tool setup, make sure they’ve all rest machining and select from previous operations under the Drop-down menu, also because the previous operations left stair step shapes in the model, be sure to select use as computed under the adjustment option or else it won’t clean up those stairs, step shapes, and since this is the finishing pass, a good value to set for the step over is something between 5 to 9 percent of the diameter of the bit. You’ll end up with a really nice, smooth surface that won’t require any sanding, but keep in mind that the finer the step over the longer take the Machine apart, and I left the stock to leave option unchecked since this is the last operation. Once everything looks good, we can export the cutting directions, AKA g-code, using one of the many post processors built into fusion 360 and since I’m using easel to control my CNC, That’s the post processor I used and since the x-carve can’t be set up to do automatic tool changes. I had to export each tool path individually. Next, I open up easel and imported the g-code files and finally just click on carve. Go through the checks and watch your creativity come to life. Oh, hey, if you made it this far into the video. I just wanna say thank you and I guess that also means you like what you’re seeing, right. If so, don’t forget to hit that subscribe button to keep up with all of my future projects. I’ve also left links to the bits I use for this project in the descriptions below, so feel free to check those out and once again, this is Alex from Beveler’s Creations Hope to see you Guys. Next time [Music] [Music] [Music]!