Fusion 360 Discussion and Laser use

[Tim Mellor]

Glad I could help keep you busy.

Partial failure of my bed of nails (on the previous page) so time for an upgrade. After maybe 20 full sheets of cutting parts and plenty of partial ones the Pin part of the bed is becoming a messy Banana. It still works if you push the pins to the lower baseplate but it is becoming a pain. Where the Laser has struck an empty pin hole directly there is some marking on the lower bed but it will last a long time before it becomes an issue. I could have just cut another Acrylic one and swapped it out but longer term time to change it up.

The 3 screw bed alignment and hold down arrangement works well and when the lock nuts are done up it stays in place.

So Laser marking out to the rescue 150 holes now center punched into some 4mm Aluminium just 150 2mm holes to go ...... I really must get my CNC Router going

[Tim Mellor]

As part of a few upcoming woodworking jobs I have decided to make myself a new marking gauge. I still have an ancient family heirloom that needs some work so I spent about an hour on Fusion this afternoon over a Beer coming up with this idea.

4mm Metal insert and thumbscrew not shown and the strip on top will be a 150mm Ruler epoxied to the rail. 2mm ground hardened pin located at the front at the zero mark.

A bit more to do to it but splitting and outputting the block into 3mm slabs is straightforward as is the arrangement as shown using the Mapboards plugin. Already includes the 0.18mm kerf.

In the zip file below is the Fusion file and the SVG if anyone wants to have a play with it or tweak to suit those nasty imperial measurements

The 4mm inserts allowed for in the drawings are these M4x8 works well with a 5.8mm Lasered hole in Ply. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3288776 ... 4c4dtcCqaK

EDIT Final version ready to cut and assemble. If it works well I will add the final files somewhere on the forum.

[Tim Mellor]

And in a similar vein a centre finder using 3D printer guide wheels for the rollers. Screws, washers and nuts are brought in from the attached McMaster Carr plugin so no need to model them just point and click to where you want them.

A bit more fiddly so this one was a two beer design and it is Saturday Night

[Gene Uselman]

I, for one, am really enjoying these designs Tim. I think the jpg of the cut files on the marking gauge was a very nice addition to explain the 3d file for people who might not be used to seeing these transparent views. thanks Gene

[Tim Mellor]

Just need to find some time to get them made now

I may as well keep going with Laser cut woodwork tools. This marking knife will be two layers of 3mm ply with 1mm Bamboo Ply skins and inserts. The blade will come from a section of old rusted handsaw blade. The inserts should help any lateral forces keep the layers together. Colour won't be as contrasted per the pic. Most likely some hand finishing for comfort after the glue up.

EDIT: Spent a little time on my Grandfathers marking gauge this afternoon. First coat of wax and oil on it and looking like the day he brought it or more likely made it in this case.

[Gene Uselman]

Tim has inspired me to post some of my Fusion 360 creations- this was done a couple years ago when I was even more of a neophyte than I am now. Perhaps it will help someone somewhere. I believe I used 900x1300 which is my bed size, and I created the rails so they are not exact- now I would import them and the bearing blocks from McMaster-Carr.

A render-

Laser gantry render.jpg

The .F3D file-

Laser adj v7.zip

[Tim Mellor]

And sometimes you draw things then decide it is probably best just to buy one.

I had done some Calculations and hand drawn sketches a while ago on a Bill Pentz style Cyclone for my CNC router mainly but also general use. So I turned the sketches into a Fusion model today.

The base shape is simple just draw up a view as per below then use the rotate function to create the initial drum. Adding in the screw deflector was the hard part but is basically a custom blade shaped thread made using the Coil function.

I looked at 3D printing it on my CR-10 broken into an upper and lower section as shown. The entire upper section came in at over a full roll of filament and 3 1/2 days print time

Now rethinking my options using PVC Pipe sections, Laser cut acrylic bits for the box shaped intake and a heat formed acrylic piece for the deflector. The nice thing with Fusion is separating all the bits out for another manufacturing option is fairly easy.

Buying one is still very much on the cards......

[Gene Uselman]

You could be over thinking this Tim [one of my favorite pass times]- this one I cobbled together works great and has been up for years. Cylinder is sheet aluminum formed to the diameter of the garbage can with an angled furnace duct connector added at an angle. Works a treat.

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dust collector2.jpg

I spent an hour with a tutorial on Freeform Modeling yesterday. The plane was made from the lump of clay on the left. Great fun.

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Freeform modeling.jpg

[Tim Mellor]

The surface enviroment in Fusion is a cool tool. I have only used it twice I think in a design as most of what I do is more Engineered than flowing forms.

The reason I was playing with Cyclones is a Coffee Roasting thing long before the CNC router thing. My larger roaster came with a fairly ordinary separator that is physically much larger than needed and it simply doesn't work that well so I went looking at alternates. The sizing for both applications is very similar with the roaster being a pressurized cyclone unlike the woodworking one. The general fix for that is to lift the outlet diameter to 150mm to help reduce the speed of the outlet to drop more of the chaff (think peanut husks). In the current situation the current one 'works' but I would like to shrink it down and get it working better.

With the CNC it is likely to get used with Carbon and Glass boards a bit so the filtration needs to be good for my lungs sake so spending a bit of time and money getting it right is worth it.

EDIT: Did some chopping and fillets on the model back under a roll of filament and 2 1/2 days for the top section. It will now actually fit into the bed of an Ender 3 or Prusa - Nearly feasible.

[Tim Mellor]

Cut and test assembled of the couple of woodworking tools a few post back. Glue up tomorrow I hope.