Fusion 360 tool library

I need to model up a few tools and toolholders for my machine. It's perfectly possible to use the generic tools and holders from the installed library but if you do that, the tool and holder dimensions won't be right. That prevents the simulation from identifying tool collisions and may also allow the toolpath generator to attempt to use a part of the tool that isn't intended to cut.

The tool library in Fusion allows you to make your own components. First thing to model up is a few toolholders. Every one seems to have its own gauge length (from the reference face on the nose of the spindle to the end of the holder) and the various holders have all manner of diameters and features. The other issue is that none of the examples are ISO40 like mine.

On my first attempt, it was helpful for me to play with and edit something to start with. And now that I've made up a few ISO40 toolholders I can modify them as required.

My first holders are for face mill, end mill and ER40 collets. Here's the end mill holder. You can see that the editor is pretty straightforward to use. It's generating a series of cylindrical or conical elements defined simply by start and finish diameters and a length. You can add and remove section as required. Here's the end mill holder:

ER40 collet holder:

Having made up a few holders, I then took the next step ie added cutters. For the face mill holder I only have one face mill, so this was fairly quick. Here's where the combined holder and face mill is defined:

Here's what it looks like in the library:

For the end mill, I added the Mitsubishi BP300 indexable tool I've already tried out on the machine.

And finally, I have the ER40 collet chuck with a 3/4" hogging end mill for aluminium.

The end result is a tool holder and tool within the CAM environment. This is the face mill and tool path:

Here's where a collision is detected between the tool shank and the workpiece. Along the bottom of the screen is a timeline showing all of the collisions. Basically the BP300 cutter isn't long enough to reach down into the cavity. Changing to a long cutter avoids that problem.