CAM and Design Manufacturing for Mechanical Engineers with Autodesk Fusion 360

Overview

With design for manufacturing, our design process focused on the design over its cost, but always keeping in mind how parts needed to be made. With manufacturing at the core of a design, we're able to fix potential problems in the design phase rather than after production. In many cases, the end product is made up of an assembly of different pieces to simplify manufacturing or to achieve specific design goals. Each piece represents a certain tolerance and put together, things might not work or fit if they weren’t accounted for in the design. We'll take a closer look at design and detail for manufacture and create toolpaths to cut parts. Even if the end goal as an engineer isn’t to fabricate your own parts, it’s a valuable skill to understand how things are made and what design decisions can ultimately affect how something is created. After taking this course, you'll be able to: - Inspect a multicomponent assembly. - Identify manufacturing methods based on part inspection. - Create detailed drawings for manufacturing. - Practice creating toolpaths for manufacture. Looking for Autodesk Fusion 360 certification prep courses? Check out additional learning resources to help you uplevel your skills: https://www.autodesk.com/learning

Syllabus

Drafting for Manufacture

In Week 1, we’ll focus on the creation of detailed drawings for production. Understanding not only how to create or customize a drawing, but also how to identify critical features or aspects of a design on a drawing is key to helping ensure the parts you get are the parts you want.

Design for Manufacture

In Week 2, we’ll discuss topics surrounding the review and modification of designs for manufacture. From tool accessibility, to understanding the required tools and the design of fixturing and soft jaws for vises, this week will help prepare for programming toolpaths. We explore and understand the cost associated with part setup, raw stock, and material removal to better identify design changes for production.

Setting up a CNC Milling program

In Week 3, we’ll focus on setting up and creating a CNC milling program. We’ll lay the foundation for all programs by creating and managing a tool library, defining a setup, and creating milling and drilling toolpaths. The setup and creation of these will be the basis for nearly every milling program.

Machining complex geometry

In Week 4, we’ll cover additional toolpaths required to help rough and finish complex 3D shapes. Understanding the toolpaths available and the types of geometry they can be used on will help you to make informed decisions on any part. Toolpaths often have strengths and weaknesses based on the geometry and we'll identify some of these to help get your parts to the shop floor quicker.