Glowforge Specific Fusion 360 Training - Start of Live Webinar Series

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Hello Everyone!

Some of you know that by day, I work as a technical specialist for Fusion 360 at Autodesk.
A big part of my job is to demonstrate to customers how they would use Fusion 360 to design their existing products faster and/or more easily by using Fusion 360.
As a result, I get to design and play in Fusion 360 all day long. I’m one lucky guy!

A while back, I posted a topic on the forum asking if people were interested in me providing Glowforge Specific Fusion 360 Training to the forum members.
The poll results were nearly unanimous. It seems that when it comes to designing in 3D for the Glowforge, Fusion 360 is the clear winner!

I am finally ready to kick off a series of LIVE webinars that will teach you how to use Fusion 360 to design things you can laser cut/engrave in your Glowforge.
The intent is to start off for complete beginners and eventually introduce more and more complex modeling methods.

Webinar #00 took place LIVE on Friday December 08th from 3:30- 4pm MST
Webinar #00 focused on:

  1. DEEP DIVE INTO SKETCHING

The official recording for Webinar #00 is available at: Fusion 360 for Glowforge Users - Part 00 of 06

Webinar #01 took place LIVE on Thursday November 16th from noon - 1pm MST
Webinar #01 focused on:

  1. The basic concepts behind 3D CAD
  2. An overview of the Fusion 360 workspace
  3. SKETCHING, which is the fundamental skill you will need to practice and get good at.

The official recording for Webinar #01 is available at: Fusion 360 for Glowforge Users - Part 01 of 06

Webinar #02 took place LIVE on Monday November 20th from noon - 1pm MST.
Webinar #02 focused on:

  1. 4x ways to import vectors into Fusion 360
  2. 3x ways to export vectors from Fusion 360 into Adobe Illustrator and into the Glowforge UI
  3. Applying a pattern to an object in Illustrator

The official recording for Webinar #02 is available at: Fusion 360 for Glowforge Users - Part 02 of 06

Webinar #02 took place LIVE on Wednesday November 22nd from 10 - 11am MST.
Webinar #02 focused on:

  1. 3D design of STACKED 2D layers
  2. Re-positioning all slices so that they fit in the Glowforge bed
  3. Exporting geometry to the Glowforge

The recording for Webinar #03 can be found here: Fusion 360 for Glowforge Users - Part 03 of 06

Webinar #04 was recorded LIVE on Wednesday February 14th.
Webinar #04 focused on:

  1. Deep dive into using the “Sheet Metal” tools in Fusion 360 to create laser cut living hinges

The official recording for Webinar #04 is available at: Fusion 360 for Glowforge Users - Part 04 of 06

Webinar #05 will focus on:

  1. Slicing an existing 3D model into laser cut-able layers using Autodesk Slicer
  2. Re-positioning all slices so that they fit in the Glowforge bed
  3. Exporting geometry to the Glowforge

Date and Time for Webinar #05: TBD

Webinar #06 will focus on:

  1. Using Autodesk TruNest Contour to automatically position all objects within the Glowforge bed in a way that optimizes material usage
  2. TBD (I am open to suggestion)

Date and Time for Webinar #06: TBD

I’m hoping that everyone here ends up benefiting from the webinar series.

Warmly,

Jason (@Secret_Sauce)
Also, Technical Specialist for Fusion 360 at Autodesk.

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Way to go!

Can’t make the live session but will definitely check out the recording. This is a great thing you’re doing.

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Ooooh! I’m definitely going to stick a big note on my desktop!

I can sure use it! Thanks for offering to do this Jason! :grinning:

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As the unpaid Fusion 360 evangelist here I just can’t say how happy this makes me.

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Awesome, I’ll be there.

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THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU !!!

This is a full sentence. Are you happy now, @discourse?

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Wow, that’s fantastic! I get to learn in my jammies. :laughing:

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Fantastic!!

Won’t be able to make the “live” … but, very excited to see your Webinar. Thank you so much!

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Great service to the community Jason, thank you! :sunglasses: I look forward to learning from you.

This gentleman is among the Colorado front range glowforgers, and I had the pleasure of meeting him in my home so he could see a glowforge in action. As you can see, he will be a welcome asset to the community!

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Very interested in this, and I’ll be checking out the recording after the session!

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I won’t be able to to attend the live webinar either, but will definitely check out the recording. Thanks for doing this!

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Thank you so much Jason! Much needed, much appreciated.

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If y’all haven’t used Fusion 360 yet and are a complete newb, then let me promote it here: After decades and decades of looking at tools and going “Nope, that’s over my head” I came across F360 in October '16 after getting interested in 3D printers. I quickly tired of the “download and print it” game and wanted to make my own simple stuff. I was able to quickly get into it and did NOT quit out of frustration. I had no idea what I was trying to do with it. Look, I can make a circle. Hot damn! Suddenly, I made a flower pot. Then I made a one-piece flower pot with a built-in saucer. Then five of them in different styles. Printed them and actual plants grew from… drawings.

Sometimes, I just sit and start making something and I have no plans. Sometimes, I feel it’s art and sometimes fart. Most of it is garbage (what my mother calls R&D) and overall, my skills are not competitive - but I don’t need them to be to feel like I’ve finally got an outlet for my ideas – one I can actually understand and finish a project with. I’m still learning a lot, like how to use variables (I didn’t even know it had them!) and there’s so much to learn.

I’ve never had a problem “seeing” things in my mind in 3D to understand how they’re constructed, but I’ve never had a way to recreate them that actually worked for my stupid lizard brain. Even for 2D stuff, it’s my default choice. I urge you to join Jason!

An example of “I don’t know what I’m doing but this is fun” is this lamp I’m currently making. This requires casting some metal and resin/glass (or any other two complementary materials - I’ve tried a bunch of looks!) but I’m also going to translate this idea to the Glowforge and use some wood. All because Fusion 360 enables my brain to actually function the way other tools haven’t.

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I’ll also be planning to watch the recorded video’s after the fact. I’ve often wanted to do Fusion360, but it just hasn’t been intuitive to me and I can do everything I want in other programs. Especially since most of the tutorials I’ve gone through skip steps or make assumptions that are not intuitive to someone who has never touched F360 before.

Even if you don’t get a ton of people in your live streaming, please know that these videos are still going to be IMMENSELY useful to us for a long time to come.

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I suspect this won’t be a popular suggestion, but I’m going to suggest it anyway…

There are many “welcome to Fusion 360, this is a sketch, this is the midpoint relation” tutorials on YouTube (and surely other platforms) already. I bet Lars has done a couple.

With this being the case, I think it would be OK to make lesson #1 something more Glowforge-centric.

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I’m certain this is true, and I’m certain some of them are very good.

If your suggestion is to skip some of the basics, then I think it would be good to have a specific intro tutorial recommended in order to have more consistency in what people have already covered independently. There is going to be variability in what gets covered as “the basics” in those tutorials, and at minimum, a list of topics that should already be familiar would be good to have so that folks aren’t getting lost on things it’s assumed they already know.

If you’re just suggesting a Glowforge-centric example to start from ground zero, then that sounds lovely.

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Just made a appointment reminder. Thank you!!

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I have to work most of the time but if we know something of what will be covered in a particular session I may well use a ditch day at some point.

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So awesome!

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Jason (@Secret_Sauce), you are my new favorite person!!

Looking forward to the webinars!

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