Printing Our First Part

Now that we’ve covered the general theory behind FDM additive manufacturing, we can move on to Fusion 360 and its CAM module.

In this chapter, we will approach an example part, starting from the setup and then reviewing the whole process. The goal of this chapter is to provide you with all the tools needed to create a G-code file to export to a 3D printer.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Presenting the model
• Creating a new printing setup
• Orienting the model onto the build platform
• Generating the support structures
• Simulating the toolpath
• Using the post-processor

Technical requirements

To understand this chapter, make sure that you have read and understood Chapter 14 and Chapter 15, or have basic knowledge of 3D printing in general.

Presenting the model

Since we are about to start creating a printing setup using Fusion 360, we should begin with a 3D model to use as an example part. The part we are about to print is a little bit more advanced than the examples covered in Chapter 15. Here it is:

Figure 16.1: Example model

It’s quite a complex bracket with several mounting holes and multiple section changes. This type of geometry may be a bit challenging for milling, but it is feasible for additive manufacturing.

First, we must check if it can fit inside the print volume of our printer. The overall dimensions of the part are 45x107x45 mm, and I plan to print the part using a printer with a build volume of 230x150x140 mm, so we shouldn’t find any issues with the dimensions.

Now that we have discovered that we can print the part, we also need to understand the forces it will have to sustain. I can tell you that this component is not loaded with any force, so the layer...

Creating a new printing setup

The first thing we shall do is move to the ADDITIVE panel inside the MANUFACTURE workspace, where we will find every 3D printing command to play with. Then, from the SETUP drop-down menu, select the New Setup command:

Figure 16.2: New Setup

The following panel is quite familiar and will be the same for any setup operation we face in terms of turning, milling, or cutting:

Figure 16.3: Setup’s Setup tab

The first thing we must check is that Operation Type is set to Additive.

Next, we can pick the 3D printer we want to use. This is not a mandatory step, but since 3D printers usually have quite a limited printing area, we must ensure that the object we want to print doesn’t exceed the maximum available printing dimensions. Choosing a machine will let us check its boundaries much easier.

To select a 3D printer, go to the Machine panel and click on Select…. The following window...

Orienting the model onto the build platform

The contact area between the build platform and the 3D model is so important. We can safely say that 90% of a successful print is due to the first layer. Therefore, as you can imagine, there is a whole set of commands to orient and place the part on the build platform however we see fit.

Alongside the standard Move Components command we should already be familiar with, other specific tools in the POSITION menu are worth discussing:

Figure 16.8: The POSITION menu’s commands

Let’s review them one by one.

Place parts on platform

The Place parts on platform command allows us to put every component we plan to print onto the build surface. For the example we are studying, this is not needed (since there is only one part and it is automatically oriented onto the build plate), but when printing multiple parts, we may have to use it.

Forget our example bracket for a moment – let’...

Generating the support structures

Two commands generate support structures in Fusion 360, and they can both be found in the SUPPORTS dropdown menu under the ADDITIVE tab. The first and most common support command is called Solid Volume Support, while the second is Solid Bar Support:

Figure 16.18: SUPPORTS commands

Straight off the bat, I can tell you that Solid Bar Support has very poor performance on most FDM printers (it is widely used for SLA printers instead). Since SLA printers have limited support in Fusion 360 and since we are printing an FDM part, we will focus on Solid Volume Support only. Once launched, you’ll see this panel:

Figure 16.19: Solid Volume’s Geometry tab

This command is not complex to use, with just two tabs. Let’s look at the first one – the Geometry tab:

• Supported Model: Using this selection tool, we can specify the 3D model we want to create support material for...

Simulating the toolpath

At the moment, our screen should look a bit like this:

Figure 16.23: Printing environment

The 3D printer (and its printing volume) have been set (1), the printing settings have been selected (2), the part has been properly oriented onto the build platform (3), and the support structures are up to date (4).

However, there is still a warning for the Additive Toolpath area (5) – the yellow triangle on the left means that the toolpath data is outdated.

Luckily, updating the toolpath is very simple. To do this, we just need to click the Generate command, which we can find in the ADDITIVE tab under the ACTIONS drop-down menu:

Figure 16.24: The Generate command

After updating the toolpath, we can check the simulation results using the Simulate Additive Toolpath command:

Figure 16.25: Simulated toolpath

The simulation environment is quite similar to those found for...

Using the post-processor

Now that we have completed the setup process and simulated the printing process, we can safely generate the G-code for our 3D printer via a post-processor.

As you may recall, a post-processor is a program whose scope is translating CAM operations into G-code files. Fusion 360 has quite a large set of post-processors for most of the desktop 3D printers on the market.

Let’s start the command. You can find the Post Process command in the ADDITIVE tab under the ACTIONS drop-down menu:

Figure 16.27: The Post Process command

This will launch the following Post Process window:

Figure 16.28: The Post Process window

The only option we will care about here is the machine model. We can browse all supported 3D printers from the Machine drop-down menu (I picked Flashforge Dreamer).

If our printer is supported by Fusion 360, there is not much else we have to do here as the default settings will work...

Summary

Congratulations – you’ve reached the end of this chapter!

Let’s recap what we went through. First, we presented a real case part to use as a printing example. Then, we learned how to create a printing setup inside Fusion 360 and how to set the printing volume by picking our 3D printer from the machine library.

After this, we covered several commands that let us position the parts onto the build platform in the best way possible. Then, we learned how to generate support structures and how to simulate the generated toolpath.

Lastly, we learned how to generate the G-code to send to the 3D printer.

All these steps represent the typical approach to any FDM printing process and are the starting point for more advanced operations.

In the next chapter, we are going to dive deeper into advanced printing settings to acquire even more tools for complex parts.