Hello everyone,
I was wondering if anyone has or may know if SketchUp program will work with the arcdroid rather than fusion 360? Both have capabilities of exporting DXF files. Just wondering if anyone uses a program rather than fusion 360 and if it worked?
I’ve used a number of programs that can save a file as a DXF, and the ArcDroid will read it. The only limiting factor with using a DXF file is that there is a limit to the size of the file that the Droid can load. So for simple designs, you should be fine. The more curves, the bigger the file. I haven’t made enough cuts to determine the limit yet. While I started by using DXF files, I made the jump to Fusion 360 because there are so many more possibilities. I knew nothing about Fusion before I started, and watched a few videos including the one from @Andrew. The first 3 I watched were from a guy who I’ve seen post a couple of times here. These are GREAT 
tutorials. Just Google “Mike Festiva Fusion 360 YouTube”
I watched Mike’s videos too, He did a fantastic job getting the basics communicated, I was so disappointed he stopped without enough info to get me thru the rest of the process. I’m able to draw in Fusion 360, but now trying to post and cut, I am running into issues with not all the details showing, Is it a dxf limitation?, if yes, what is the alternate format for larger files?
PS, when downloading Fusion 360, it states you get 30 days of full features, but I have a feeling that’s to the case, even calling them for support isn’t offered or available as a trial user…such a poor decision on Autodesk for that IMO
Thanks in advance
Mike
You must have the trial version of fusion. You need the personal version which is free…
@mtw1 this is the YouTube tutorial I used for solving my DXF dilemma. This video imports an SVG file, but DXF files are imported the same way.
If your current DXF file is too large now for ArcDroid to load as is, then most likely Fusion 360 will generate a g-code file with too many lines of code for ArcDroid to read.
The solution is at 21:00 in the video. The narrator does not talk about this functionality, but in the 2D menu he is referring to, you’ll see a box to be checked labelled “Smoothing”. Click this box. The smoothing functionality basically creates the G-code using longer curve segments instead of using infinitesimally small segments. As a result the number of line segments in your design decreases, and you have less lines of code for ArcDroid to read.
(The project in my avatar went from 17,000 lines of code to 1,300 lines of code when I used the smoothing functionality. Somewhere in these posts, I seem to remember @Andrew stating that ArcDroid can read up to 3,500 lines of code - please correct me if I mis-stated this)
The smoothing feature is basically making your design more granular. However, this additional granularity will still exceed the tolerances of the ArcDroid, and your design, once cut, will still look great.
Good Luck and keep experimenting!
Bob, this is a great help, I’m now so close…Part drawn, tool path, posted, imported into Arcdroid, now only hiccup is delay in cutting trigger while torch is moving…So it’s not cutting soon enough.
So close !
You need to increase your Pierce Delay setting in the “Tune” menu
This is the length of time it holds station after triggering the torch output before it begins to move.
Cheers
AM
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