Fusion360 tool changes

Hi all,

I've been using fusion 360 to teach myself CAM over the last several weeks, and have run a few simple programs on my Haas minimill.

Today, I ran into the "no tool change" limitation of the personal license, but am unsure of the correct way to work around that. I am looking into setting up an educational license for the lab, but as with everything at my workplace, it will take time to get that in place.

My part requires 3 setups - milling the front, right side and lastly the top of the part. For each of these setups, there is a roughing operation with a flat endmill followed by a finishing operation with a ball endmill.

Does this mean that I have to export 6 separate programs, then run them separately on the mill?

i.e.
1. Front, tool#1
2. Front, tool#2
3. Right, tool#1
4. Right, tool#2
5. Top, tool#1
6. Top, tool#2

Does that seem right? If that's the way it needs to be done, I can understand why personal license users are upset...

Lee





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personal licence users shouldn't be upset for something they have FREE access to, some people will complain about anything free still not being good enough, this forum is a good example when people come here - post a question, and then complain that the hand holding is a bit rough

on topic - post each tool for the setup at hand as separate program and add a line manually to call the next program as a subprogram if you can't be bothered to do that by hand on the control, you can even work around the absent rapids this way if you're that desperate not to spend 30$ a month for a CAD/CAM package...

My apologies, I didn't mean to come across as ungrateful, or whatever you took it to be - I was merely mentioning that I can see what all the fuss is about.

I'm new to CAM (and CAD), and it seemed like a fairly heavy limitation. My reason for posting wasn't to complain, only to find out the best way to work with what I have for the moment. As stated, I'm working on upgrading the license.

And no, I have no problem with paying for a license. But it's not my own money I'm spending, and I have to work within the limitations at my place of work.

Thanks for providing information on how to work around it.

Best regards

Lee

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I can't comment on Fusion, as I don't use it due to their business model; but if your purpose is to learn CAM, IMO a much better option if you qualify is an educational license for Rhino ($140) and the plugin madCAM ($180). While it lacks some of the fancier modern toolpaths and it doesn't do canned cycles, it is still an extremely powerful combination for very little money.

Your workaround will be posting each tool separately and manually programming toolchanges. There is 100% no foot to stand on in complaining on what limitation the personal license has. I paid 500 (essentially free) for a year license of fusion for full access to 95% of what the software has to offer. You can't even get a reply from other companies without expecting to pay 5k-10k.

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jhov said:

I can't comment on Fusion, as I don't use it due to their business model; but if your purpose is to learn CAM, IMO a much better option if you qualify is an educational license for Rhino ($140) and the plugin madCAM ($180). While it lacks some of the fancier modern toolpaths and it doesn't do canned cycles, it is still an extremely powerful combination for very little money.

Click to expand...

Jhov,

Thanks for the pointer in a other direction, I'll definitely look into that one.

SirAIG: thanks for your input. I addressed that point in my reply above.

Best regards,

Lee

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Yeah you are correct about having to post individual tools. If you want to run a program with tool changes the work around would be to open the first program in notepad(or notepad++) and delete the end of program codes, add in some tool change codes and paste the next tool in.

If you are making multiple parts, I'd probably proof each tool path out as it's own program first before combining them to avoid having to edit the combined file a bunch. When running a one off job doing each tool individually isn't a huge restriction.

I was also a bit annoyed with the licence changes, researched other software but in the end I paid for it because everything else was much more expensive for similar workflow. I'm still pissed off f360s drafting sucks yet they sell a professional licensed...