I’m a very content Fusion 360 hobbyist user most of the time, and appreciate the access to the advanced features Fusion gives us on hobbyist license. Occasionally though, I get annoyed that we lack rapids. Especially during a slow toolpath, when the cutter is safely above the workpiece and its just crawling to a new position to start cutting again. Since G-Code is just a text file after all, I wrote a small tool to recover the rapid movements that Fusion omits from us. I thought I would share it with the group in case it’s useful for anyone else. https://rapidsrecovery.com
How it works: While you’re setting up your CAM, make note of your Retract Height for your toolpath. When you process your G-Code through the tool, it will look for times the cutter hits this height and then add back a rapid movement to the next line. If you probe from the top of your workpiece, the height you’re looking for is the same as the Fusion value, but if you probe from the bottom, then it’ll be the Fusion height + the workpiece thickness.
I only have a Onefinity Woodworker with the original black controller so that’s the only machine I can test with. Like I said before, I’m a hobbyist, so I’m far from a G-code expert. If you have some G-Code files that you find aren’t working, post them if you can and I’d be happy to take a look. All processing happens locally in your browser, no information is collected through the website.
Hi Jordan – welcome to the forums. I have pondered the same thing! Even came up with a similar solution. In the end though, the time savings for me was marginal - like seconds rather than minutes or hourss, so I abandoned the concept. I suppose if you are doing a long cut with a lot of repositioning or a lot of 3D motion it might pay off, but I’m not sure it really matters to much for the one-off cuts.
For other reasons I had to purchase a commercial license so it’s no longer a problem for me.
I haven’t received my Onefinity yet, but when I do I am going to try the following Fusion add-in which says it is a workaround for the tool change limitation and the rapids. Do either of you have experience with this add-in?
I agree. It’s not a life changing amount of time gained. Typically, I won’t even bother using it on tool paths that don’t have many retractions on them. But on other tool paths, I’ll upload both the original g-code and the new rapids g-code to the controller, and it’s nice to see that rapids will save ~5 minutes or so. Not a game changer, but kind of nice. I wish I had a reason to purchase a commercial Fusion license because I like Fusion so much, but I just can’t justify it when I’m some one who only CNCs once a month if I’m lucky.
I haven’t tried that add-on. Personally, I like to have a separate file per tool path because I don’t have a tool changer or anything. I appreciate the moment between tool paths to pause and inspect that everything cut how I expected it to. That way I can even make changes if I need to. If I were doing large batches of things, then maybe I would try it, but I mostly make one offs, so I don’t have much need for that add-on.