Today I Learned - about Fusion -

[Mud]

How about a thread of tips tricks and obscure things about Fusion 360 to start this section? One of the blessings of fusion is all the social media presence of it and all the online support, but it's also a curse because you can get lost in it before you find out what you need to know.

I just learned that you can turn the design history on and off in design. I created an angled plane to put a sketch on, then couldn't figure out how to alter the angle of the plane. All the documentation said just click on it and edit it. I couldn't do that. When i selected it, the only options I had were to copy/move it or delete it. Finally found someone who asked if i had turned the history off because that hides the option to edit. Well, no, I hadn't. Digging for that lead me to the right place to right click to turn it on. Once on, I still couldn't edit it, because no history had been created. More questions, and a comment that I was editing a Solid Edge part lead someone to tell me that imported solids default to history off, and that he had tripped over that more than once.

That reminds me that you can directly open a Solid Edge .par file in Fusion. There's no choice to do that, no indication that it will work, no mention in documents that it will work, but after I had converted a couple files to step then imported them into Fusion, I just tried it on another file and it worked seamlessly. There's no telling what else there is to find by accident.

I'm only 2 months in, and spent most of that building 2 post processors and learning about that. I'm not doing much drawing, just CAM and doing a lot of poke-and-hope and reading support documents in between every other business task, but I'm way ahead of where I expected to be. I'm clearly NOT giving up SE, I just renewed my support for that yesterday.

 

[LOTT]

I like Fusion and know where you want to go with this thread, the trouble is that Fusion updates so much that the tips will be out of date in six months. Whenever I run into a problem like the history turned off it seems like the solutions I find will be from 2019 and totally not work. But I absolutly hope this turns into a good forum to ask question for current, up-to-date info.

Now watch this turn into an epic thread, and this post is here at the top being a wet blanket on the fire...

 

[g-coder05]

I like Fusion and know where you want to go with this thread, the trouble is that Fusion updates so much that the tips will be out of date in six months. Whenever I run into a problem like the history turned off it seems like the solutions I find will be from 2019 and totally not work. But I absolutly hope this turns into a good forum to ask question for current, up-to-date info.

Now watch this turn into an epic thread, and this post is here at the top being a wet blanket on the fire...

Nope, won't let the bashing carry on here. For some, Fusion is a good viable option for their business. I know most have seen me speak against AD in the other board but that wasn't because of Fusion, It was the way AD killed us Delcam users off. I think Fusion has the ability to become a key player in the CAD/CAM world but I want them to finally come out and be forward about the products liabilities as far as 3rd party sharing.

Any software anymore is a gamble.

 

[LOTT]

Nope, won't let the bashing carry on here. For some, Fusion is a good viable option for their business. I know most have seen me speak against AD in the other board but that wasn't because of Fusion, It was the way AD killed us Delcam users off. I think Fusion has the ability to become a key player in the CAD/CAM world but I want them to finally come out and be forward about the products liabilities as far as 3rd party sharing.

Any software anymore is a gamble.

Just to clarify- Fusion is our primary CAD/CAM. I started using it a couple years ago as bootstrapper like a bunch of other startup machine shops, and so far haven't had any reason to change.

I'm in no way meaning to bash Fusion, it's just been an observation that things do change rapidly. And generally for the better too, but a solution that worked last year might not work now.

 

[Mud]

I like Fusion and know where you want to go with this thread, the trouble is that Fusion updates so much that the tips will be out of date in six months.

I'm in no way meaning to bash Fusion, it's just been an observation that things do change rapidly. And generally for the better too, but a solution that worked last year might not work now.

Point taken. I've searched for answers and found things from 2019 that don't apply at all to current version. I think if this gets populated, at least the most recent couple pages should be relevant, and threads like this are great for 'how to' ideas that don't occur to users casually, at least they are for me.
I've seen areas that seem unfinished or crippled that are unexpected, like not being able to reuse a sketch. I just move on and figure that's part of using beta software and expect it to change soon. I'm normally using Solid Edge and going from the best CAD to a $500 cad is necessarily an adjustment. On the other hand I see folks showing work on forums that I'd never think to try, new users that are making amazing shapes at home on their 3D printers that I'd be completely unable to make in my shop on a mill.

Any software anymore is a gamble.

And that's no shit. I've been paranoid about CAM since I lost Smartcam in 1999 and had to buy new all over again. I've been through several accounting/shop mgt packages also. I've been held hostage by Edgecam since 2000, got shifted around to 3 different VARS as they each folded and the company changed hands, and now direct to the mothership, I always reupped even though there's been little improvement in the program for several years for me, because if I even have a problem with licensing with their feculated license schemes I can't even ask a question without being on maintenance. So I've shifted to Fusion for the moment, to see where it goes. If I get boned by Adesk, at least I don't have a huge dollar amout invested and I can't say I wasn't warned.

 

[LOTT]

Today I want to learn about Fusion... where Templates went? Used to be you right click on the setup and there's "Create Template" towards the bottom. Now it's gone, I'm guessing it got moved with an update, but where?

 

[jz79]

Not sure if this will be relevant to anyone else, but it seems that last Fusion update had I guess a bug in it that I stumbled upon - I drew up some new parts, created CAM programs, posted them (had to change the post dialogue back to the legacy version, this update undid my preference setting from before), but when I went to upload them to the control (Heidenhain TNC 355), it would error out saying there is a problem within the program, turned out Fusion post added these couple lines:
7 CYCL DEF 7.0 DATUM SHIFT
8 CYCL DEF 7.1 #1

I traced it to Fusions Machining Setup window WCS setting, it used to default to 0 whenever a new setup is created, but now it defaults to 1, and post processor has this line in it:
if (currentSection.workOffset > 0)
this adds the Datum Shift lines to the posted code, so my quick fix was to change the 0 to 1, so it ignores the WCS setting once again, so I don't have to remember to switch to that tab that I never went to and change the 1 to 0...

edit: someone on AD forum just suggested that once you set 0 in that WCS setting, you can right click on it and save it as a user default, which also fixed this issue without making changes to the post processor

 

[Mud]

Since I discovered that right click/set default trick it's been useful lots of places.

 

[jz79]

another short one:
CAM, selecting a pocket to machine, then on the Heights tab I need to select different feature on the part that is at the correct depth, but when I mouse hover over the feature Fusion is autoselecting one of the height planes instead, sometimes you can change the view angle to find a direct line of sight to the feature and thus select it, big PIA...
Turns out you can position mouse over the feature, left-click and hold and a small window pops up with all features under that mouse cursor position like in the attached window, release mouse button, hover over the list to highlight the necessary feature and click it



what I still can't wrap my head around is their optimized path algorithm... it always seems to generate some odd sequence that in no way looks like it is the shortest path or quickest time
this example is mild, but I had it generate path to machine those 5 recesses, selected from left to right, and it "optimized" them by starting at middle one, then the closest 2, then the far 2, traveling between those features was extended like 5 times...

this one is "optimized" for something, maybe shortest distance from start point to end point, why would that matter though...


order selected

 

[jz79]

from the - Fixing things that weren't broken...

previously, when you wanted a tool to follow a line drawn in CAD with its centerpoint, you would turn the tool comp off in the 2d contour toolpath, used to work like that for all tools that I can remember using last 2-3 years

today I needed a specific chamfer, create a 2d contour path, select chamfer tool, turn comp off - and it doesn't follow the line....... turn comp back on and the chamfering tool tip is on the line again, out of curiosity I switch over to an endmill, and there the comp set to off works like it should, switch back to chamfer tool - and it is the other way around...

I'm lost for words, they must have "fixed" this "issue" that wasn't an issue right at the same time they removed the small +/- buttons next to value entry fields, so when it sufficed to click a button to bump a value a mm one way or the other, now you have to click the field, enter a number....

must be the improvements that necessitated the 2x price jump from next year

 

[Mud]

Did you try if before and now it's different or is this the first time trying it? I have the same experience, Chamfer works terrifically when all systems are go, but when things are a little odd and you want to hand finagle it it's really feculated.

 

[jz79]

I'm fairly certain I used the chamfer tool with comp off few months ago, its radial compensation, you turn it off, it means the value is 0 and tool centerline should be on the guide line, and it works like that with endmills, I didn't try the other types of tools.

Fusion does have a separate 2d Chamfer toolpath also, it works fine when there is a sharp corner on model (or you can delete it so you can then select the corner to be chamfered), but if there already is a chamfer on the part, then it can't interpret it, and in my case, I had to cut a larger chamfer than the 6mm tool could do in one pass, so I drew up the path manualy, first the lower step, then the upper step, and the toolpath of choice for this, according to AD themselves, is the 2d Contour with comp off.

It just makes no sense to me for tool comp to work one way for one type of tool and different for another tool

 

[jz79]

Anyone else had cloud stability issues since last update of theirs?

I had some network certificate error message for couple days since the update (could be bypassed by pressing Trust Anyway option), then it went away without me doing anything at my end

Today, earlier in the day, I uploaded few customer Parasolid files, opened one just fine, finished whatever I was doing with it, tried to open next one, get some sort of read access denied error, ACMsomething not available, tried opening Fusion 360 forums to see if there is an issue, can't log into their page, get their server error message, and now seems their authentication servers are down, which also can explain problems accessing my cloud storage from within Fusion...

And they seem to have broken the offline mode for a while now, at least I couldn't switch to it if I unplug my pc from ethernet, it just says it needs connection and won't start because can't verify subscription, even though it did work perfectly fine 5 minutes before (meaning local cash data of my subscription should have been updated)

this is on Win10, fully updated to latest everything

 

[Garwood]

My f360 has been just as junky as usual lol.

I did recently learn you can delete a chamfer just by clicking on it and hitting the delete key.

 

[Oldwrench]

Gosh, I just clicked on this thread thinking it was new and immediately saw Gcoder's name. Then looked at the date. Damn.

 

[Garwood]

NOTICE (RESOLVED): Autodesk service issue impacting Fusion 360 and other Autodesk services

As of 1:30pm PT on 11/17/22 - The impacted services are fully restored. If you're still having any issues, please let us know. Sincere appreciation for everyone's patience today. While they are rare, we realize how disruptive these outages are and will be doing a full retrospective to fully...

forums.autodesk.com

Well, got a $45k rush job hanging on by a thread and Autodesk has shit the bed!

It's difficult to call up the project manager for a billion dollar co and explain your F360 hobby software has crippled your ability to deliver on time.

 

[Mud]

Same here. I guess this was inevitable.
I guess for now I have to go back to Edgecam.
Anyone taking bets on how long they are down?

I wish there was a way to work offline for a couple days without logging on first.

I have one install on a W7 machine, they stopped updating for W7 so it's normally stable, I just can't open a file I edited on a W10 machine.

 

[Charlie Gary]

Hello, we're from the government Autodesk, and we're here to help.

 

[jz79]

AD seem to have fixed the issue with the cloud, at least I have no problem accessing all latest stuff, didn't bother to check older ones, but I doubt there will be problems with those, however that offline mode was what was supposed to take care of problems like this...

and it used to run just as you expect, but at some point they decided that you absolutely cannot start F360 without internet connection, so as they could be able to verify that you're not running more than one F360 instance with your one account, like I have a PC in the office, at home and a laptop in the workshop which I use to upload code to machines, and I must close all other Fusion 360 instances on the home and office PC to be able to run Fusion on the laptop

So they basically made the offline mode totally useless, because some greedy tw*(^ at AD decided that they cannot allow the above to happen, talk about anti piracy measure killing productivity of your paying customers...

 

[Mud]

So they basically made the offline mode totally useless, because some greedy tw*(^ at AD decided that they cannot allow the above to happen, talk about anti piracy measure killing productivity of your paying customers...

I thought it used to be different, you just confirmed it. I guess like everything else it will gradually deteriorate.