Fusion 360 tips – Enhanced GCode viewing

April update with Fusion 360 tips… First: generate setup, generate toolpaths, simulate toolpaths, and post GCode with one of the post processors from Fusion 360’s extensive library. It’s just that easy (sorta), but what’s next? Once the GCode file is post processed, it is important to view the file to examine what will happen in the machine. Brackets is the viewer used for Fusion 360 when a GCode file is posted. By default, all of the text is black in brackets. This makes it difficult to understand what are comments, GCodes, and MCodes without examining the file in close detail. As every machinist knows, every second is time they can be running this job on the machine.

Fusion-360-tips

On the other hand, some machine shops purchase a different post editor. In Fusion 360, the default editor can be changed to automatically launch that editor when the “post process” command is used inside Fusion 360.

Download this Syntax highlighting extension for brackets. Here’s a video for help: https://youtu.be/onbWqOMkaFI

Also, coming up: what’s new for fixes in Fusion this month:

Get ready for some eye candy – you now have some brand new materials such as Black Oxide, Titanium Nitride, particle board, hard board, MDF board and more in your appearance material library available for download.

Here is the full list of where they are located inside your library folders:

• Metal->Coatings->Coating – Black Oxide
• Metal->Coatings->Coating – Titanium Nitride
• Metal->Aluminum->Aluminum – Bead Blasted
• Wood->Unfinished->Particle Board
• Wood->Unfinished->Hard Board
• Wood->Unfinished->MDF Board
• Leather and Cloth->Cloth->Fabric (Generic)
• Leather and Cloth->Leather->Leather (generic)
• Other->Base Materials->Base Materials – Opaque
• Other->Base Materials->Base Materials – Layered
• Other->Base Materials->Base Materials – Metal
• Other->Base Materials->Base Materials – Transparent

 By the way, the last 4 base materials in that list are there to give you more flexibility in creating your own custom materials without having to dissect existing materials.

Other issues to be fixed in the April release:

•  Crash Error Reports (CERs) related to the parameters dialog (thanks to everyone who submits these!). It was showing some weird behavior where the UI didn’t work properly and parameter names didn’t update after they’ve been explicitly renamed. Some of these issues would lead to a crash, which was just downright frustrating.
• There was another issue where Fusion 360 would crash after using the move command or after creating a joint. Turns out, this problem, as well as the parameter ones, were all related, ultimately stemming from one bigger issue, and we’re happy to report that it has been resolved and fixed.