One of the reasons I wanted to set up my rotary axis was to cut foam core to make prototypes for objects and flat pack furniture I want to design and later cut from plywood. I designed a simple lamp shade in F360, then used Slicer to make ‘slices’ to cut. I took the generated cut sheet and imported the DXF files into QCad (a program I am evaluating at the moment) to clean them up a bit. I then import the files into SheetCam to use the Masso Tangential PP to generate the g code to cut on the 1F. I need to work with the software in order to reduce or somehow eliminate the number of short line segments as it makes for a long and ‘choppy’ cut - but the pieces turn out well. I also learned that the cheaper Dollar Store foam core does not cut as well as the quality of foam and coating layers is inferior to those in art stores. I have a few pictures and a short video for your interest.
I purchased a higher quality and denser foam core, and used it for another prototype lamp. It cut much better, which was necessary given the number of slots and their close proximity to some of the edges of the pieces.
I was also able to link the Slicer program to F360, so that I can load the cut sheet directly into a new file. I can then use F360 CAM to mill my parts in plywood, acrylic, etc. Fortunately Slicer will auto-arrange the pieces, as the nesting extension for F360 is only available by subscription.
I am experimenting with a trial version of SheetCam and it enables the placement of parts to maximize the material, but it is a manual process which I do not mind.
I have also been experimenting with InkScape and Qcad in order to clean up and reduce the number of small line segments that make up curves in some of the less linear prototypes I am cutting. I have much more to learn in this area, but the results are promising, and the cuts are much smoother compared to directly using the DXF files from Fusion’s Slicer.
