Warning: Last week I ran a part wrong because I trusted the CAM simulation too much

I've been using Fusion 360 for about 3 years now and honestly I got lazy. Last Thursday I was running a job for a custom bracket in stainless steel. The simulation looked perfect. No collisions, clean passes, everything checked out. So I loaded up the stock, hit cycle start, and walked away to go grab coffee. Came back 15 minutes later to find the tool had plowed straight through my soft jaws because the simulation didn't account for a tiny bit of stock shift from the first op. Wasted $80 worth of material and had to reorder. My point is I see a lot of guys on here saying simulations are good enough now to trust blind. I disagree. They're a guide not a guarantee. Nothing beats actually watching those first few passes with your own eyes. Anyone else had a simulation lie to them like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

scott.jana20d ago

That part where you said "simulations are a guide not a guarantee" really hit me hard... I used to think I was above all that, like I had the software figured out. Then last month I was running some aluminum parts and the simulation showed perfect clearance on every pass. Put the machine in cycle, went to check my phone, and came back to a broken endmill because the simulation didn't show that the tool holder was actually a few thou wider than what I had modeled. Cost me a whole Saturday and a hundred bucks in tooling. Changed my mind real quick about trusting that stuff blindly.

williams.jenny20d ago

@scott.jana learned that one the hard way myself.