How to Use Flow Toolpath in Fusion 360!
FLOW is new to me and it can be frustrating, so let’s learn how to get it to work properly and how it can improve our surface finishes! It’s all about the curves!
The Flow toolpath in Fusion 360 uses surface vectors – also known as the Sculpt Environment, T-Splines or using the ISO parametric directions of selected surfaces. What does that mean?
In layman’s terms: most CAM toolpaths are not created directly from the solid model (e.g. CAD) but rather from a tessellated STL file that Fusion 360 creates in the background. What the heck does that mean? Fusion is breaking your CAD file part into tens of thousands of small triangles and using that geometry to drive the toolpath. Flow avoids that by deriving its toolpath directly from the surface, but the toolpath is very particular about the type of surface being selected for the toolpath.
Where the Flow toolpath shines is it evenly distributes the control points, creating a very smooth and fluid toolpath. This often means better surface finishes on your paths! A (major) bonus feature is that Flow supports multi-axis tilt parameters which allow you to (easily!) create amazing 5-axis toolpaths!
Downloads:
Fusion 360 File
