Will this new Advanced Nesting Extension work to replace your current Nesting needs? Follow-up 10 Dec 2020: This laptop is stupid fast. I keep forgetting that I'm not on my iMac which has a Core i9 with 8 cores, 64GB of RAM, and costs nearly double what this laptop cost. Battery life continues to shock me as well - it lasts forever. I think Fusion actually might be performing better on the M1 than my Intel iMac. I have no specific benchmark, just a feeling.
I use nesting for sheet metal and this is not even close as it stands. Reduced functionality for increased UI complexity compared the packages I use now. First off, Fusion is a graphics based CAD/CAM system and yet the nests are just pictures, I need to click on a component in the nest and rotate it or move it or mirror it, not go though some text based spreadsheet like UI (that doesn't have an apply button and needs to close to update any changes to the nest). I don't want to be harsh, I know it's in preview and any critique will depend upon its cost. But right now I can send a step file of a sheet metal assembly to VSSi and it'll spit out flat patterns, folding diagrams, tooled components including canned cycles and finished nests with schedules for around £1000 a year maintainance and support. (the software itself came with the machine).
@@carl160269 not just pictures, the nest results can be stored in manufacturing models where you can manipulate components just like in design, and use the solids for CAM
@@matthewwynn161 Yes I found thery were also manufacturing models, but still moving parts around and rotating them is not as good as it can be, there is no respecting of boundries i.e you can overlap parts and have them hanging off the sheet, no quick 90 deg rotate, you have to use the move dialogue, yes you can right click the part and select move but it's defaulted to face rather then body so extra clicks there. Just feels a little clunky (hate that term but you know what it means). It not so much needing to alter nests at design time, more the need for the laser operator to quickly re-nest if say he wants to use a remnant or there is some damage on a sheet.
Great tutorial, Justin! I don't cut sheets of plywood very often...but this is would certainly be a HUGE time saver for those who do. Going to play around with it now :)
@@pdxcnc For sure! The most exciting thing (to me) is seeing F360 mature to where less 3rd part software is needed for these edge-cases. Really helps streamline the workflow...especially when changes/updates are needed
Justin, I just realized who you are when I saw your SS router and that tapered block that I recognized. Thanks for the videos. I’m about to manufacture 40 pcs of MDF (20 of 2 shapes) so I was looking into the nesting feature in fusion.
@@feelindizzy777 To be clear, it's a bit Apples and Oranges. Fusion is a blank slate for creating anything from scratch. Mozaik is cabinet specific but does it very well. It auto nests, and you can manually nest. it provides all the boring for specific name brand hardware like Blum tandem undermounts, and can bore for hinges also. Mozaik can also make dovetailed Baltic Birch drawers for me, that we provide with every job for our clients. We use Mozaik and V-Carve on our CNC. V-Carve is capable for our one off stuff, but I'm very interested in Fusion 360 to open up my world and allow me to do more. At first glance, nesting seems a bit clunky on Fusion 360, but I'm sure it could be used in a productivity setting.
I also use mozaik for casework/cabinets. You really just cannot beat it. But Fusion is amazing! Nesting had been a huge downfall, and prevented me from utilizing it more. I do have to say that while I am excited that it is finally here, it is a fairly clunky process....not intuitive at all. And the big question....after the preview period, is it going to be a cloud credit pay to use add on?
Currently Fusion 360 is $490 a year, the nesting extension is $1,465. How in the world do they justify this? I am an armature / hobbyist (ish). The reason I switched from SolidWorks to Fusion was the great price and it does everything I need plus 100 things I don't (just like SWs did). But to have nesting, which is not a complicated type of feature, especially when compared to the built in CNC capabilities of Fusion, as a 3x the base price add on... WTF. Who do I send a letter to about this?
Awesome new feature, the last thing Fusion needed! Im confused with the orientation, how does it know the piece orientation when you check the “bind” tab, from what does it take the information? Thanks for the video 😊
The Bind checkbox is used to lock the Component settings with that of its material in the Process Material Library (click on a Material > Nesting tab). For example, with the Bind checkbox enabled, the following properties for that Component will match the Nesting properties of its material -> Pre-kit, Rotate (90,180,270), Deviation, Increment. This provides a quick way to set allowed rotations based on your material. The 'Orientation' field sets the initial angle for that nestable component. Nesting engine applies the allowed rotation angles to this initial Orientation.
Great tutorial, thank you. Do you know if this feature could somehow be used to calculate stock requirements; Often I need to 'block up' (bond together) layers of mdf or tooling board to create thick stocks and at the moment I have to manually measure and figure out how to best cut up the boards for the most efficient use of material. It's time consuming and I wonder if there is some trick thing that anybody is doing on Fusion to make this a task for the software to do?
Thanks. That would be nice. I don't think it'll much help you for 3D nesting but you can use one of the two (Arrange or Nesting Extension) to get 2D nested areas based on stock sizes you suggest.
Can you nest parts that already have toolpaths? Sometimes we make tons of small parts on alphacam and it’s easier to create the toolpaths and then in nesting enter how many duplicates we need it to cut. That way we don’t have to create tool paths for hundreds of parts
This seems promising, hopefully it's not to expensive for us small companies starting out with CNC routers and such. I need to test it out, to see how it compares to the old Waterjet nesting software I'm used to :) Great to see that Fusion is finally getting a decent Nesting functionality atleast, I'm just low finally switching over to Fusion so good timing from them :P But, why does it only work with top level components? Don't you want to be able to sort your components into sub-components to make your main assembly more easy to work with? I can see myself easily having hundreds of components in some assemblies, sure, most won't be stuff I need to machine, but still? I may need to rethink the way I do things, but, total noob on Fusion and parametric CAD (but 15years of professional CAD/CAM work). I really like how easy this makes it to go from 3D model to Gcode with full parametric links, that can be very useful!
@@pdxcnc I am just trying this now. I am NOT having much luck. There are some steel stand in materials that seem to overwrite everything I try to install for new materials and then when I try to nest the items I want to nest are showing in red with a hazard warning that does not tell me WHY... Was really hoping this would work well we use Fusion360 for a LOT of CNC machining at our company here for both wood and metal. This would have really helped me if I could get it to work...
@@petematos6201 I also was trying this yesterday and the second time I tried to use it there appeared approximately 50 steel materials with really random meaningless thicknesses. Then I realised you have to delete them one at a time as select/shift/select doesn't work.
@@petematos6201 I'm not a fan of the Fusion nesting features at this stage. All these steps. What a struggle. I I'm using f360 combined with mapboards pro. It's more convenient in use than this plugin. In my case it has helped and served me well for the passed 3 years or so. I'm using several plugins for creating my furniture/lamello's, blum hinges, shelve holes etc etc. Fusion is my goto software for my carpentry and all the other designs. If the 'autodesk extension bonus counter' kicks in, just don't expect it to cost less than 100usd a month. I personally don't like the 'pay per month' fees. My choice of nesting would be ucannest. (using ucancam sometimes) ucannest has some nifty features to optimize the toolpath.
Awesome tutorial. I have an issue where I'm trying to bring in a second component from the "component sources" tab but I can't bring in a .stp file, it's limited to .F3D files. Any ideas?
Had to say. I'd guess it has to do with how its selecting parts. Use the Nesting Preparation Tool in Design > Tools and select the face you want nested for those parts.
Do you have any shortcuts for selecting multiple geometries when creating toolpaths? When I nest things like cabinet carcass sides with lots of pinholes or wall panel ribs with multiple dados, it takes for ever to select every single feature. There has to be a smarter way. On my old cam software, you could toolpath 1 part and nest the part with the toolpaths as many times as you wanted. I know you cant do that in fusion but surely there is a way to avoid having to click each profile
@@pdxcnc thank you!! I was on a zoom call with someone from auto desk and they showed the use of this but when I went to try it, the option was missing. This feature makes adding toolpaths 10x faster. I love it
Thanks for the tutorial, seems like a great tool. I was wondering, do you know if there's a simple work around for grouping items in the nest? I'm CNC cutting birch ply carcasses and fronts. The units are small enough that all the fronts can be cut from the width of a board and can therefore be grain matched. I think we need to effectively group these fronts within the nest. I've tried putting the front bodies under a single component but that didn't work. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Hey Jake. I looked into this more with Autodesk. The straight answer is that this isn't possible. One workaround however, is to design the parts so they are connected by a thin section, sort of like an onion skin. That way nesting will see them as one body but you can CAM it how you'd like after.
Hi, this has worked a treat. For anyone who might be interested I've also been able to use this on our sliding slatted bed (for a camper van). The slates are all grain matched but when assembled (and modelled) there is only 0.5mm gap between slats. In order to machine them all grain matched, I 'moved' them all to be spaced by at least the cutter diameter and 'joined' them with an extrusion. Cheers!
HI,i have a mdf door model, its component with parameters, width and height, and only this parameters are changeing depends what dimenssion of door i need (patern on the door always the same) How to speed up cutting multiple doors with difrent dimensions (width,height), same patern ony width and height change ? using one model, now its make me crazy to make every component for each dimensions... could u Help ??
