Best way to panelize parts for CAM?

Rootentity

I have an Ox style CNC machine. Nearly everything that I make is cut from sheet material.  I'm using Fusion 360 as my CAM software as I can't afford much else and it has the options that I need.  I have been cutting out one piece at a time then re-zeroing and repeating.  I'm looking for a good way to setup a job to cut out a bunch of pieces in one go.

Here is a link to the project: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/dd2559741ed61faef1997d78/w/60f81226279baa226e41fed5/e/fe96c9c7592d0a5be277aa2b

I tried remaking the sketch and using a linear pattern with construction lines used to center and space the pattern, but it behaved very unpredictably, and quite laggy.  I got it to work by using a linear pattern on the part itself, but I had to manually increment the spacing and remeasure over and over to get it close to centered on the sheet, and I will have to do it again when I measure each actual sheet as they won't all be an even 300mm square, and must be flipped for machining on both sides.

My question is how should I go about laying out my parts for sheet cutting either in Onshape or Fusion, or another (free for hobbyist) CAM program.

Jake_Rosenfeld

Hi again Joshua,

Sorry for your trouble, I can tell you a little about how it works.  The feature looks at the "Thickness of material" option and only lays out parts that match the thickness that you supply in the option.  Because you supplied "4mm" it doesn't lay out any of your parts.  If you change the thickness to "3mm" (the actual thickness of your part) it lays them out just as you expect!




You could even make the whole thing slightly more parametric by storing the thickness in a variable using the "Measure distance" custom feature, and inputting that variable directly into the "Thickness of material" field:

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/e0d3b4c187041b97cf71546a/w/4f39c627584473de1689459c/e/1d92cf5d594c9a452fb51546

Jake_Rosenfeld

Have you tried the "Auto Layout" custom feature?
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/3b3bb87c95d03259328fdb1f/w/9828ddc941ddc2896ebeebdb/e/8f9d1cd594a95f7276facad0
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/3910/auto-layout-feature

You can make a bunch of copies of your part, then supply the feature with the sheet dimensions and minimum spacing and it will fit as many of your part as possible onto a sheet of the specified size.

If you have never used a custom feature before, this page has videos on how to link them into your toolbar and use them (Look for "Start using custom features"):
https://www.onshape.com/featurescript

philip_thomas

Perfect ^^^^ 

Rootentity

I can't seam to get the auto layout feature script to work for this part.  It keeps stacking all of the parts inside each other.

Jake_Rosenfeld

Hi again Joshua,

Sorry for your trouble, I can tell you a little about how it works.  The feature looks at the "Thickness of material" option and only lays out parts that match the thickness that you supply in the option.  Because you supplied "4mm" it doesn't lay out any of your parts.  If you change the thickness to "3mm" (the actual thickness of your part) it lays them out just as you expect!




You could even make the whole thing slightly more parametric by storing the thickness in a variable using the "Measure distance" custom feature, and inputting that variable directly into the "Thickness of material" field:

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/e0d3b4c187041b97cf71546a/w/4f39c627584473de1689459c/e/1d92cf5d594c9a452fb51546