Machinist Apprentice | Fusion360 Programming Long-Term | Day 97

Working on the rocket project again this morning, trying a slightly different approach to programming today. 

One of the things my boss would sometimes get on my case was how much I relied on Fusion to program "for me," referring to the 3D toolpaths that require very little to generate a workable program. He was brought up with all the manual machines, so I figured this was more of a mindset thing than anything else, and since he doesn't regularly use a lot of the auto-generated tools, he didn't really know the power they had.

Starting at the makerspace, I was mostly self-taught when it came to programming, so I mostly did what worked and didn't try to improve it as I wouldn't work on the same project again. Because of that, I primarily used 3D adaptive as my roughing and finishing toolpaths, which worked with a lot of time-consuming tweaking. The problem is that that mindset carried over to my current job, and I am constantly struggling to get over it and use a systematic method to program the parts. This rocket project has been especially complex due to having to finish both the parts and the remaining stock around them. Basically, cutting very clean grooves between piece and stock, in contrast with most parts only requiring a good finish on the product and the wasted stock, would get removed regardless. 

Today I decided to start building a series of steps that I can use to produce any given part. I also want to create many CAM templates that I can use for future projects; this will require a lot of extra work upfront and remembering to make any edits in the program itself even after the parts are finished up if I changed anything on the machine to ensure I have proven toolpaths.

I've gone back and forth quite a bit on finishing some of the faces in this project and the best way to go about it. I found that manually drawing faces with specific boundaries then using hard geometry in 2D pocket clearing toolpaths works surprisingly well. Using this method, I simultaneously finished off the parts' flats and cleaned the side walls in a single toolpath. 

The main drawback to manually drawing out your geometry is that your reference drawings are no longer up to date with the actual part if you shift the hard model. Basically, if you have a square box (your part) and you create a sketch on one of the faces of the box, then shift the box to the side, the sketch does not move with it; thus, any program that references that sketch will stay the same, while others will shift with the part. Generally, once you have a part setup, you don't really make changes to its position, so this isn't that big of an issue. 

In summary, creating manual sketch geometry to use as a reference in your CAM programming is an absolute time-saver. It seems like it would take longer to create a custom sketch or body for each major feature of your project but the time saved trying to manipulate the toolpath settings more than makes up for the perceived time spent. The downside is you're creating an external feature that is not directly linked to your 3D model, but in most cases, this is not a problem. I can definitely see how this one trick makes up a good portion of how fast my boss programs.