I’ve been using Autodesk Fusion 360 3D Modeling software off and on for a few years and still learning a lot. I find that learning with other people to be helpful. I would be happy to meet with anyone at VHS who wants to do a group F360 practice session. Everyone from complete newbies to advanced would be welcome to come,
I recently attended the Monthly Fusion 360 User Group Meetup which is held at Makerlabs. It was fun and it was interesting to see what other people were working on.
We did a group design challenge at the end which was based on this video from the F360 Live Series video on modeling a flag pole. I did not finish it during the meetup but I did finish this later on my own. It was a great learning experience.
Mostly just want to learn to use the software. I design lots of things in draw plus, an illustrator type software, which is fine for the laser cutter but I design like blueprints which is limited.
Also I’d like to make use of the 3d printer
If you’re having a…challenging model for 3D printing, this is an interesting and very short video on how you can “collapse” a Mesh object (STL) to a solid object!
One thing he didn’t cover is importing the mesh in the first place so that it is properly scaled. This is a common task, for example, if you want to modify an stl downloaded for 3d printing from Thingiverse, etc.
The best way to import an stl so that it is properly scaled is to open a new design and use the Insert Mesh Command under the Insert menu. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pTYW130ApU)
This will provide the option to choose the file and select what units it is in. (Most STLs will be in mm, but the file format doesn’t have units built in so you have to specify it independently)
You can also Upload an stl file under the Data Panel, but this will import it using Fusion 360’s default of cm. That means if the STL is in millimeters, it will be imported 10 times bigger than it should be. (In this case you can use the Scale command under the Modify menu.)