Austin Shaner has some great videos on CAD / CAM in Fusion 360 (mostly electric guitar stuff), but this is a great into video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPMvnzmuTOw
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Just for startup use CC and cm. You won’t be losing anything in F360. Plus the config has to be done in cm. If you have start up problems it will stream line troubleshooting. There are always startup problems.
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Here are some Youtube links for beginners on Fusion 360:
Day 1 of Learn Fusion 360 in 30 Days for Complete Beginners! - 2023 EDITION
Fusion 360 Tutorial for Absolute Beginners— Part 1
Fusion 360 complete beginner tutorial - step by step
Here is a search for Cam specific tutorials:
Youtube Cam Tutorials
Hope this helps,
If you need further assistance you can contact me anytime.
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Awesome. Thank you so much!
Sounds like you’ll want to learn both F360 and another program like Carbide Create. Neither do everything optimally.
F360 will be great for your cabinet making and other functional endeavors. But it is fastback at making decorative stuff like signs. It doesn’t have an actual functional way to v-carve for example.
Carbide Create can do functional stuff, but I find it harder to add features that need dimensions. However it is far, far better at making decorative projects.
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If you are going to be using the SO5 with F360 and 3rd party CNC interface software, just remember to edit the post processor so that it does not use inline comments. There is a thread about it here:
I can v-carve fine with F360. Here is a post from another user talking about doing v-carve inlays with F360:
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That is a ton of math to avoid having to use a free program that does it inherently. I used the term “functional” and I guess that technically counts as functional since it works… it’s a 1 out of 100 on functional scale. So I guess I lose on a technicality… but I stand by my statement. You’re using the wrong tool for the job.
I use F360 on a daily basis and I have zero desire to attempt that instead of having it done in 2 minutes in Carbide Create or Vectric VCarve. 
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It’s not productive to approach a random online comment with a mentality of winning or losing. I want to clarify that I’m not your opponent; I was simply stating that you can indeed use Fusion 360 for V-carving, so the original poster is aware that it’s an option. In this situation, there’s no need to determine a winner or loser.
Since you do your CAD work in F360 it makes sense to me to just use F360 for CAM as well.
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My comment was more for humor… never comes across on the internet like you intend.
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More or less out of the gates 2+ years ago when I got my Shapeoko Pro I went all in on the Fusion 360 path. Now sorry for the self-promotion but if it’s allowed here’s a link to my Instagram page and pretty much everything there has been done using Fusion 360 for CAD/CAM for all my projects.
PNGC Creations - https://www.instagram.com/pngc_creations/
Now as some may have pointed out for the more complex designs/meshes that I’ve used, especially those I’ve imported from my own Blender 3D objects creations, Fusion 360 at times has been very sluggish performance wise (edit: and I do have a fairly beefy workstation which probably helps). If this was my main stream of income I’d probably be much more inclined to investigate/invest in other tools/software for the more complex/decorative stuff, but for what is a side gig and for my own pleasure, I’ve just remained really patient for a few of these projects while working on the CAD/CAM in Fusion 360.
As for V-Carving I’ve found the 2D Engrave toolpath to be really good. I posted this in another thread on the forum but this latest project of mine is a text inlay and the fit was great, simply use the sketch vectors/lines, no offsets (for inlay plugs), nothing like that and have been very satisfied with the results. Granted it did take me some figuring out to get a process down for the inlay plug but I think I got that nailed up now (maybe I should do a write up about how I do that).
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This was in reference to 3D printing. I have never felt that Fusion gave me anything I was missing in terms of additive CAM, but now I’ll probably have to try it…ugh.
I had already invested in cam software before I bought my Pro 4, and so have no need to use Carbide Create. Each package has there strong points.
For generating toolpaths for stl files, I’ve found Meshcam to work really well, where Fusion chokes. and for V carving, and other sign stuff, V-Carve Pro is my go to.
My copy of Sheetcam will get dusted off when ever our Hypertherm plasma table can’t cope with a dxf file.
Fusion 360 gets used the most because of the modeling, whether for 3d printing, or machining parts.
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Great to hear this feedback. Thank you. Also, those are beautifully done pieces! Congrats.
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My suggestion would be to limit the number of fronts you are simultaneously learning on and stick to one CAD / CAM pairing with the machine until you become familiar with feeds, speeds, workholding, CAM strategies etc.
Once you’ve got the hang of using the machine, what CAM strategies work well for the materials and pieces you’re making, how not to machine through the clamps etc. you’ll be in a good position to transfer that knowledge to another CAD / CAM tool which may have advantages for specific types of model or work.
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This is totally a valid way to go. I’ve barely touched Carbide Create and have done everything I would consider useful and productive in F360.
You will still need to use Carbide Motion or some other program to directly control the S5. While F360 can create g-code it doesn’t do any of the direct communication with a CNC. Really all you’ll be doing with Carbide Motion is setting your zero, then selecting the file that F360 has created to run. Think of Carbide Motion as what you would do on the LCD screen of your 3D FDM or SLA printer.
One of the positives of using F360 that I’ve found is that I can design something, then pick CNC or FDM or SLA based on my needs at the time. No doubling of work if you find out later that it would be much easier to print this than to cut this. Or I’ve printed some designs first for quick prototyping, then later cut them out of a harder plastic or aluminum.
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Definitely do a write up. That would be greatly appreciated. It might even be able to translate some of the techniques to other software programs.
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I use F360 myself for almost all projects, but I’ve never come up with a successful technique for inlaying. If you decide to do a writeup on your method I’m sure a lot of folks here would be interested.
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There is a great write up and method posted by @neilferreri
I had to read it a few times to wrap my head around it, but once I attempted this on my own design it was a perfect fit on the first go! I have only used this method, and had nothing but success.
I have since adjusted Neil’s parameters to suit my machine and comfort level with regards to speeds. Whenever I need to do a inlay I copy the setups from that project and paste it into the current project, select the geometry of the new project and hit play.
I have never thanked you for this @neilferreri ! But thank you very much for that writeup/ method! You are a fantastic contributor to this community!
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I think CC is fine for Letter type sign work, simple scroll designs. They have a lot of free Designs in their library.
I have paid Fusion solely for the 3D CAM work. The Design metaphor in F360 is not my cup of tea ( I come from a SolidWork house. I have free Onshape for 2D/3D design work.
Starting with CC is a good move in my opinion. It limits the mental gyrations in the beginning ( which I am still in)