Fusion 360 3D Contour: Deep Dive into Toolpath & Settings!

Fusion 360 3D Contour Toolpath deep dive with common bugs, tips, and tricks! Let's troubleshoot and examine this CAM toolpath to figure out ways to improve it!
00:00 The Problem: Tool Much Air Cutting!
00:20 Starting Over Can Help!
00:58 Adjust Tool Containment
01:44 How Endmills Affect Toolpaths: Ball Nose Endmill VS. Bull Nose Endmill
02:42 What Causes Errant, Weird, Dippy Toolpaths? Tessellations & Tolerance Value
04:10 Hardcoding a Negative Additional Offset or Editing Expressions
05:04 Tolerance Affects G-Code Size! Smoothing Option & Settings
06:37 Contact Point Boundary Option
07:27 Contact Only Option
08:16 Slope Option & Settings
08:45 Cutting Order: Top Down Vs. Bottom Up
09:33 Machine Shallow Areas: Eliminate or Reduce Scalloping
11:40 Avoid Touch Surfaces & Heights
12:29 Final Thoughts about 3D Contour
5 Reasons to Use a Fixture Plate on Your CNC Machine: bit.ly/3sNA4uH
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Reach us / CNC Info:
Speeds & Feeds: provencut.com
Fusion 360 (Purchase, Support, Training): dsi.fyi/3yu7Mt0
Online Fusion 360 Training: bit.ly/LearnFusion360
SMW Products: saundersmachineworks.com/
CNC Resources: www.nyccnc.com

[@reebgogs]

Watching right now... How great would it be if Fusion had an Apply button for tool paths! Instead of clicking on OK to see the results and then having to click Edit again, you would just click Apply, view the results and proceed as usual

[@MakeTechPtyLtd]

Yes "Apply" is not in Fusion much. I wonder if it's a limitation because of the way Fusion was developed. -Ken

[@MrRctintin]

Thanks for making these, I miss your regular Fusion360 how-to’s, and with new features always appearing in Fusion, your vids really help us who are learning.

[@dal2888859]

Wow. It took 2 hrs to work through this one, taking notes and backing up a million times, but so valuable. Im a wood cnc user, but i love your channel and i appreciate the content you're providing.

[@MotivxTools]

I've struggled with this toolpath for a while, thanks for providing some answers!

[@jasonshrieves4467]

Great walk-thru! Thanks! I'm sure I will refer to this video a few times in the next months!

[@AmericanMakerCNC]

Thanks for the detailed explanation of this toolpath John. Super helpful!

[@znosler]

This was a SUPER informative video. I was able to make many improvements to my tool paths (not just Contour, but 3D adaptive too). But my machine bogs on all the little short segments. I think HSM might be the ultimate solution, but sadly that's a $3000 solution. LOL.

[@rbyt2010]

Great video John. Thanks!

[@MorganOliff]

Very nice coverage of what contour can do! also as a previous video of yours covers, it can handle undercut geometry with what fusion calls a "Slot Mill" or a full radius keyseat cutter! I don't know all of the reasons that it is limited, but it frustrates me that the green linking moves are unaffected by the smoothing values and contain a ton of points unless you make them into straight plunge moves.

[@bcbloc02]

Curves look so simple but in reality are rather hard to make. Thanks for the tips!

[@RMBRacingInc]

We continue to have this problem on a regular basis. What you think should be a straight forward path it adds a bunch of whisper cuts to it. I recently found that the fine setup down on the passes tab causes a bunch of problems with this. Thanks for the info and would love to see more causes of whisper cuts or air cuts for the other tool paths. Maybe even some more info on what the options are actually used for.

[@7alfatech860]

Great, always learn something from your videos

[@wolfgangweller6253]

As always very informative and helpful! Greetings from Germany☺

[@lordgarak]

When I started with fusion 360 it took me way to long to realize 3d contour is what I wanted for most everything. I'm running a CNC router. So I assumed 2d contour was the primary tool to use. Great to have a little refresher on it. The shallow machining is something I was not aware of. I would usually go to a morphed spiral or parallel tool path for these areas. I'd love to see more videos like this one. Maybe some updates to your older videos to bring them up to the current version of Fusion360.

[@zajawamotocykle9256]

Please use 3d contour flow operation .

[@mlefe09]

Great tutorial!

[@crozwayne]

good work John

[@zajawamotocykle9256]

Nice job

[@tomte47]

I would have used the 3D Ramp tool path for that geometry and every similar where you have a continuous tool path around the part. It's generally smother as long as your machine can keep up with the extra lines of code it generates. (Caveat i use Inventor + Inventor Cam so Fusion might be different)

[@Kompound_Machining]

Great video, but i still fight it to blend the top. it always leaves a small step and it drives me crazy

[@zajawamotocykle9256]

I love using function 3D Flow . Its epic 😍

[@dajulster]

Yeah flow automatically scales step overs to match the curvature. Eliminates the need to worry about steep to shallow transitions

[@zajawamotocykle9256]

@@dajulster its fast and beautufull

[@lukebeattie6264]

Thanks

[@kimber1958]

I NEED TO LEARN ABOUT YOUR COURSES,

[@isaiahpalm5151]

will you ever do a shop tour with AVE?

[@jasongreenawalt2632]

If the machine has any real amount of memory, I would use a ramp tool path on that all day long and you won’t see the step down links in the part like you will with this

[@piyushnayak2630]

I don't cam a lot but whene ever i do i get this no toolpath generated error and it is brain wrecking.

[@orangedream267]

This all pretty much universal between any CADCAM program. NX, Mastercam, Esprit. They all function pretty much identically, they just may use SLIGHTLY different terminology.

[@zajawamotocykle9256]

1:30 please dont cut air. Use 3d flow