Use toolpath simulation

00:02

Use tool path simulation.

00:05

After completing this video, you'll be able to

00:07

simulate a single tool path and simulate a camp setup

00:13

in fusion. Let's begin with the supply data set C

00:15

A simulation MM dot F 3D.

00:18

This design contains a setup with multiple tool paths for facing roughing,

00:23

finishing as well as drilling.

00:25

So we're going to take a look at simulating single tool paths,

00:28

the entire setup and making some adjustments based on our results.

00:32

When we're taking a look at tool pa

00:34

infusion, we have what's called in process stock.

00:37

This allows us to see the tool path as well as the stock removed, previewed in green.

00:42

As we select each of the tool paths, we can see material as it's being removed

00:47

and we can make sure that all the material is currently

00:50

being removed and that there are no problems or changes needed.

00:53

Impro stock is a great way to identify

00:56

potential problems like an incorrect drill size.

00:59

In this case, we're going to expand drill two,

01:02

we're going to right click and edit the tool

01:05

and we're gonna change the tool diameter to eight millimeters

01:10

once we've done this and accepted the tool change.

01:12

We need then need to regenerate the tool path by going to actions and selecting,

01:16

generate

01:18

once this has been updated, when we reselect the tool path,

01:21

we can now see that the whole size is correct.

01:24

This is a perfect way to evaluate each of your tool paths.

01:28

However, using simulation can be a little bit more beneficial.

01:32

First, let's take a look at the facing tool path.

01:35

We'll go to actions and select simulate.

01:37

When we take a look at simulate, there are a couple of different options.

01:41

We can toggle on or off the tool,

01:43

we can toggle on or off the tool path.

01:46

And we can also modify the way in which we display our stock

01:50

right now. There's an accuracy slider,

01:52

we have a transparent option

01:54

and the colorization is set to comparison.

01:57

This means that areas in red will show material that's been removed,

02:02

that should still be in the model areas in green will show material that is

02:05

exactly matching the model and areas in blue are where stock has been left behind.

02:10

There are a couple of options. But for this example, we're gonna use comparison,

02:14

we can hold down the left mouse button anywhere

02:16

in the canvas and begin dragging to the right.

02:19

And this will allow us to manually step through the tool path movements.

02:23

We can also click anywhere at the bottom

02:25

and jump to different positions in the tool path

02:28

or we can manipulate the speed and we can play through the simulation.

02:33

Once again,

02:33

areas in green show that we've removed material to the exact top of our part.

02:38

Once again, we can take a look at transparency,

02:41

we can see the part inside and see the material has been removed.

02:45

There are some other options at the top where we can toggle on

02:48

and off the display of tools as well as a tool path.

02:51

And there's an information section which can show any potential issues,

02:55

warnings or any settings that we may need to change.

02:58

Let's go ahead and exit the simulation and select the entire setup.

03:02

Then we'll go back to actions and select simulate

03:05

with the entire setup. Selected, I'm also going to use go to next operation.

03:09

This is going to jump past the facing tool path,

03:12

then we can jump past the two D adaptive past the two D contour

03:17

and all the way to the end. If we wish to select, go to end of tool path,

03:21

I'm gonna turn off transparency to make this a bit easier to see

03:25

what we'll note is that there's stock remaining on the

03:28

side and the bottom of that step in our part.

03:31

This means that another tool path is needed to go back and finish those areas.

03:35

What we're gonna do is exit the simulation, go to two D and select two D contour.

03:41

Make sure that we are using the appropriate tool.

03:43

In this case,

03:44

our 12 millimeter flat end mill with aluminum finishing for our cutting data.

03:49

From here in our geometry selection. We'll select the bottom edge of that contour.

03:53

We'll move over to our passes, make sure that we're not leaving any stock.

03:57

And we'll say, ok,

03:59

now that this has been machined, we take a look inside of our setup.

04:02

We have the first four operations using tool number one.

04:06

Then we're switching to tool two for our spot drill and tool three for our drilling.

04:10

We want to make sure that we don't have any extra tool changes.

04:14

So we're going to hold down the left mouse button

04:16

and drag our new two D contour up above our drilling operations.

04:20

This means that it'll be positioned appropriately

04:23

inside of the order of our tool paths

04:25

and it prevents us from having any additional tool changes.

04:28

Next, we can select the entire setup, go back to actions and select simulate.

04:34

Once again, I'm gonna jump past our facing tool path.

04:37

We're gonna jump past our two D adaptive tool paths

04:40

and past our two D contours.

04:42

We can see now that everything has been machined

04:44

and we can play through our drilling operations.

04:47

There is of course stock that has been left on the bottom of our part.

04:51

And that's simply because it's being held in a vice.

04:53

This is an important step in the process to

04:55

make sure that we have removed all material.

04:58

There are plenty of other options for you to explore inside of simulate.

05:02

But quickly, let's just take a look at the info tab

05:04

inside of the info tab. It'll tell us exactly where the tool is,

05:08

the spindle speed, whether it's a feed rate or a rapid movement.

05:12

It will also tell you the operation,

05:13

the tool and information about whether or not there are collisions,

05:18

the amount of volume or material removed and whether or

05:20

not we've had any collisions on the statistics tab,

05:23

we'll get information about the total machining time, the distance,

05:26

the number of operations and tool changes.

05:29

Let's exit the simulation. And let's take a look at one more thing.

05:32

Let's right, click and edit our setup. But this time we're going to select a machine

05:37

when we select a machine.

05:38

It's important to note that the machines in the

05:40

fusion library have an option for simulation ready.

05:44

While you can build your own machines using the machine builder,

05:47

we're going to focus on machines that are readily available.

05:50

When we do this.

05:51

We would want to make sure that we scroll through and find an appropriate machine.

05:54

Whether or not it's one from a specific

05:56

manufacturer like Hoss or a generic machine from auto

05:60

desk.

06:01

Let's select Hoss and let's scroll down.

06:04

In this case, I want to find a vertical machine. In this case, a hos VF two.

06:08

Notice that this one says that it has a T RT 160 tilting rotary table.

06:14

We don't need four axes.

06:16

In our specific case, but in some cases,

06:18

you might have a machine that does have that extra axis,

06:22

make sure that when you're searching for a machine that it does

06:24

have a 3D model available and it does have simulation data.

06:28

We're gonna select this and download the model.

06:31

We need to select a location to store it.

06:33

And in my case, I want to make sure that I am putting it in the right location.

06:37

I'm gonna be inside of my module for CNC machining.

06:43

And I have a subfolder called machines.

06:46

Once we select that,

06:47

it's gonna download the model and it's gonna insert it into our setup

06:51

with some machines such as hoss machines.

06:53

You may get an additional dialogue that's telling you about a machine connector.

06:58

If you want to explore live connections to your machines,

07:00

you can go ahead and toggle that on.

07:02

We're gonna keep it off for now and we want

07:04

to focus on positioning the machine relative to our part

07:08

because our part itself does not have a vice or a fixture.

07:11

It is important that we locate it at an appropriate distance above our table.

07:16

We're gonna select, OK.

07:18

And now we want to simulate our tool pass with the machine

07:22

to do this.

07:23

We have the entire setup selected and we'll select simulate with machine.

07:27

When we simulate with a machine, I'm going to slow down the speed

07:30

and select play

07:32

simulating with a machine is gonna show the tool moving with the machine

07:37

and you'll notice it's moving back and forth

07:40

depending on how the machine is set up.

07:42

You should see the spindle staying stationary and the table moving.

07:46

In our case,

07:47

you can see that the table is staying stationary

07:50

and the entire machine is moving around it.

07:52

There is an option down here for the viewpoint

07:55

and there's a machine base model and tool.

07:59

We're gonna set this to machine base and we're gonna continue to play through

08:02

notice when we use the machine base option

08:05

that the spindle moves up and down in Z. But the table moves in X and Y.

08:09

This is how you would expect the actual machine motion to be.

08:12

If we zoom in, we can see that everything has still been machined

08:16

and the part is complete at this point

08:19

while using simulate with machine on a 2.5 or three

08:23

axis set of tool pass is likely not needed.

08:25

It is extremely helpful. Once you move into four and five axis programming,

08:29

make sure that you do explore selecting a machine

08:32

because there are a couple of other benefits.

08:35

When you have a machine selected,

08:36

it generally has a post processor associated with it

08:39

as well as specifics about things like the amount of travel in Xy and Z

08:44

to ensure that you're not over traveling and also things like spindle speed limits,

08:49

that's gonna be it for this video. So make sure that you do save after you're done.

08:53

And we can move on to the next step.

Video transcript

00:02

Use tool path simulation.

00:05

After completing this video, you'll be able to

00:07

simulate a single tool path and simulate a camp setup

00:13

in fusion. Let's begin with the supply data set C

00:15

A simulation MM dot F 3D.

00:18

This design contains a setup with multiple tool paths for facing roughing,

00:23

finishing as well as drilling.

00:25

So we're going to take a look at simulating single tool paths,

00:28

the entire setup and making some adjustments based on our results.

00:32

When we're taking a look at tool pa

00:34

infusion, we have what's called in process stock.

00:37

This allows us to see the tool path as well as the stock removed, previewed in green.

00:42

As we select each of the tool paths, we can see material as it's being removed

00:47

and we can make sure that all the material is currently

00:50

being removed and that there are no problems or changes needed.

00:53

Impro stock is a great way to identify

00:56

potential problems like an incorrect drill size.

00:59

In this case, we're going to expand drill two,

01:02

we're going to right click and edit the tool

01:05

and we're gonna change the tool diameter to eight millimeters

01:10

once we've done this and accepted the tool change.

01:12

We need then need to regenerate the tool path by going to actions and selecting,

01:16

generate

01:18

once this has been updated, when we reselect the tool path,

01:21

we can now see that the whole size is correct.

01:24

This is a perfect way to evaluate each of your tool paths.

01:28

However, using simulation can be a little bit more beneficial.

01:32

First, let's take a look at the facing tool path.

01:35

We'll go to actions and select simulate.

01:37

When we take a look at simulate, there are a couple of different options.

01:41

We can toggle on or off the tool,

01:43

we can toggle on or off the tool path.

01:46

And we can also modify the way in which we display our stock

01:50

right now. There's an accuracy slider,

01:52

we have a transparent option

01:54

and the colorization is set to comparison.

01:57

This means that areas in red will show material that's been removed,

02:02

that should still be in the model areas in green will show material that is

02:05

exactly matching the model and areas in blue are where stock has been left behind.

02:10

There are a couple of options. But for this example, we're gonna use comparison,

02:14

we can hold down the left mouse button anywhere

02:16

in the canvas and begin dragging to the right.

02:19

And this will allow us to manually step through the tool path movements.

02:23

We can also click anywhere at the bottom

02:25

and jump to different positions in the tool path

02:28

or we can manipulate the speed and we can play through the simulation.

02:33

Once again,

02:33

areas in green show that we've removed material to the exact top of our part.

02:38

Once again, we can take a look at transparency,

02:41

we can see the part inside and see the material has been removed.

02:45

There are some other options at the top where we can toggle on

02:48

and off the display of tools as well as a tool path.

02:51

And there's an information section which can show any potential issues,

02:55

warnings or any settings that we may need to change.

02:58

Let's go ahead and exit the simulation and select the entire setup.

03:02

Then we'll go back to actions and select simulate

03:05

with the entire setup. Selected, I'm also going to use go to next operation.

03:09

This is going to jump past the facing tool path,

03:12

then we can jump past the two D adaptive past the two D contour

03:17

and all the way to the end. If we wish to select, go to end of tool path,

03:21

I'm gonna turn off transparency to make this a bit easier to see

03:25

what we'll note is that there's stock remaining on the

03:28

side and the bottom of that step in our part.

03:31

This means that another tool path is needed to go back and finish those areas.

03:35

What we're gonna do is exit the simulation, go to two D and select two D contour.

03:41

Make sure that we are using the appropriate tool.

03:43

In this case,

03:44

our 12 millimeter flat end mill with aluminum finishing for our cutting data.

03:49

From here in our geometry selection. We'll select the bottom edge of that contour.

03:53

We'll move over to our passes, make sure that we're not leaving any stock.

03:57

And we'll say, ok,

03:59

now that this has been machined, we take a look inside of our setup.

04:02

We have the first four operations using tool number one.

04:06

Then we're switching to tool two for our spot drill and tool three for our drilling.

04:10

We want to make sure that we don't have any extra tool changes.

04:14

So we're going to hold down the left mouse button

04:16

and drag our new two D contour up above our drilling operations.

04:20

This means that it'll be positioned appropriately

04:23

inside of the order of our tool paths

04:25

and it prevents us from having any additional tool changes.

04:28

Next, we can select the entire setup, go back to actions and select simulate.

04:34

Once again, I'm gonna jump past our facing tool path.

04:37

We're gonna jump past our two D adaptive tool paths

04:40

and past our two D contours.

04:42

We can see now that everything has been machined

04:44

and we can play through our drilling operations.

04:47

There is of course stock that has been left on the bottom of our part.

04:51

And that's simply because it's being held in a vice.

04:53

This is an important step in the process to

04:55

make sure that we have removed all material.

04:58

There are plenty of other options for you to explore inside of simulate.

05:02

But quickly, let's just take a look at the info tab

05:04

inside of the info tab. It'll tell us exactly where the tool is,

05:08

the spindle speed, whether it's a feed rate or a rapid movement.

05:12

It will also tell you the operation,

05:13

the tool and information about whether or not there are collisions,

05:18

the amount of volume or material removed and whether or

05:20

not we've had any collisions on the statistics tab,

05:23

we'll get information about the total machining time, the distance,

05:26

the number of operations and tool changes.

05:29

Let's exit the simulation. And let's take a look at one more thing.

05:32

Let's right, click and edit our setup. But this time we're going to select a machine

05:37

when we select a machine.

05:38

It's important to note that the machines in the

05:40

fusion library have an option for simulation ready.

05:44

While you can build your own machines using the machine builder,

05:47

we're going to focus on machines that are readily available.

05:50

When we do this.

05:51

We would want to make sure that we scroll through and find an appropriate machine.

05:54

Whether or not it's one from a specific

05:56

manufacturer like Hoss or a generic machine from auto

05:60

desk.

06:01

Let's select Hoss and let's scroll down.

06:04

In this case, I want to find a vertical machine. In this case, a hos VF two.

06:08

Notice that this one says that it has a T RT 160 tilting rotary table.

06:14

We don't need four axes.

06:16

In our specific case, but in some cases,

06:18

you might have a machine that does have that extra axis,

06:22

make sure that when you're searching for a machine that it does

06:24

have a 3D model available and it does have simulation data.

06:28

We're gonna select this and download the model.

06:31

We need to select a location to store it.

06:33

And in my case, I want to make sure that I am putting it in the right location.

06:37

I'm gonna be inside of my module for CNC machining.

06:43

And I have a subfolder called machines.

06:46

Once we select that,

06:47

it's gonna download the model and it's gonna insert it into our setup

06:51

with some machines such as hoss machines.

06:53

You may get an additional dialogue that's telling you about a machine connector.

06:58

If you want to explore live connections to your machines,

07:00

you can go ahead and toggle that on.

07:02

We're gonna keep it off for now and we want

07:04

to focus on positioning the machine relative to our part

07:08

because our part itself does not have a vice or a fixture.

07:11

It is important that we locate it at an appropriate distance above our table.

07:16

We're gonna select, OK.

07:18

And now we want to simulate our tool pass with the machine

07:22

to do this.

07:23

We have the entire setup selected and we'll select simulate with machine.

07:27

When we simulate with a machine, I'm going to slow down the speed

07:30

and select play

07:32

simulating with a machine is gonna show the tool moving with the machine

07:37

and you'll notice it's moving back and forth

07:40

depending on how the machine is set up.

07:42

You should see the spindle staying stationary and the table moving.

07:46

In our case,

07:47

you can see that the table is staying stationary

07:50

and the entire machine is moving around it.

07:52

There is an option down here for the viewpoint

07:55

and there's a machine base model and tool.

07:59

We're gonna set this to machine base and we're gonna continue to play through

08:02

notice when we use the machine base option

08:05

that the spindle moves up and down in Z. But the table moves in X and Y.

08:09

This is how you would expect the actual machine motion to be.

08:12

If we zoom in, we can see that everything has still been machined

08:16

and the part is complete at this point

08:19

while using simulate with machine on a 2.5 or three

08:23

axis set of tool pass is likely not needed.

08:25

It is extremely helpful. Once you move into four and five axis programming,

08:29

make sure that you do explore selecting a machine

08:32

because there are a couple of other benefits.

08:35

When you have a machine selected,

08:36

it generally has a post processor associated with it

08:39

as well as specifics about things like the amount of travel in Xy and Z

08:44

to ensure that you're not over traveling and also things like spindle speed limits,

08:49

that's gonna be it for this video. So make sure that you do save after you're done.

08:53

And we can move on to the next step.

After completing this video, you’ll be able to:

  • Simulate a single toolpath.
  • Simulate a CAM setup.

Video quiz

Which option in Fusion 360 displays stock removed when a toolpath is selected in the Browser?

(Select one)
Select an answer

1/1 questions left unanswered

Step-by-step guide

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