Now, let’s say you don’t really care about using support structures and just want to print the vehicle as-is. That’s okay, too, since the majority of the support will be located underneath, and so these surfaces should be mostly hidden.

Still, 3D printing rounded features like these wheels can be tricky, as there’s only a tiny surface of contact between them and the bed. Bed adhesion is one of the major sources of failure in 3D prints, and printing this model could prove to be a headache.

Let’s try and alleviate that by creating a slightly bigger surface area between the wheels and the bed. If you’ve been following this tutorial up to now, let’s roll the model back to the point where all four wheels were still attached to the model.

To do that, simply click and drag the small gray indicator in the Design History Timeline to the left until you reach the first “Split Model” operation of this tutorial.

Now, to increase the surface area of all four wheels, we’ll be cutting off just a small section of them to create a flat area underneath. To do that, we first need to create a construction plane, which is a mere design aid that doesn’t interfere with solid parts. It will act as a reference for other tools.

In this particular case, we’ll need a construction plane to tell Fusion where exactly to cut the wheels. Let’s try the simplest way to create a new plane.

Construction Plane

1. Select the “Offset Plane” feature under the “Construct” tab in the toolbar.
2. Then, click on the lower flat surface of the model as shown above. A new orange plane will appear, along with a blue arrow and a dimension input window. This is going to be our cutting plane for the wheels.
3. Either drag the arrow down or enter 17 mm. You’ll see that the final location will be just above “ground” level.
4. Click “OK” or press Enter.

All that’s left is to cut! By now, you should be familiar with this tool, but let’s go at it once again.

Split Wheels

1. Select the “Split Body” tool from the toolbar.
2. Click on the model to select it.
3. Click on the “Select” button next to the “Splitting Tool(s)” setting and select the plane we just created.
4. Click “OK” to confirm.

This single operation should cut out all four wheels, creating a significantly larger contact surface that would benefit bed adhesion.

Yet another good tactic for reducing build time and filament is removing unnecessary material from models. For functional parts, this can be more complex due to the direct impact of that material on the overall resistance of parts. For more aesthetic models, however, there’s less to worry about.

Chamfers and fillets are great tools for removing material while at the same time smoothing sharp corners and edges. Yet, there are other ways, too.

For our particular model, we could save some filament by removing material from the vehicle’s underside. This region should stay hidden most of the time, anyway.

To do that, we’ll create a Sketch and use the Extrude feature to remove material. If you want to know more about these features and how to use them, check out the previous tutorial on designing in Fusion 360.

Still, let’s go over the main steps. As a refresher, the Sketch feature allows us to create two-dimensional drawings and profiles that act as templates for 3D modeling features, like extruding.

Sketch

1. Create a sketch at the middle of the bottom surface of the vehicle. Note that, just by doing that, the bottom surface becomes part of the Sketch, with the perimeter lines turning blue.
2. Select the “Offset” tool under the “Modify” tab in the toolbar. This allows us to duplicate a closed shape already present in the sketch and offset it by a certain distance, either inward or outward.
3. Click on the perimeter of the bottom surface. You’ll note that a new perimeter will appear in red but a few millimeters away from the original.
4. Either drag the blue handle or enter -3.00 mm.
5. Click “OK” to confirm. You just created a new profile that matches the bottom surface perimeter.
6. Click on “Finish Sketch”.

Now all that’s left is to finally remove the material using the cut operation of the Extrude feature. The Extrude feature is a very common tool for creating solid 3D bodies, but it can also be used to subtract material.

Extrude to Cut

1. Select the “Extrude” feature in the toolbar. To apply the operation, we need a sketched shape to serve as a template.
2. Select the internal shape defined by the new perimeter we just created.
3. Enter -12 mm to perform an extrude-cut. You can, if you want, cut a little deeper, but then the thickness of the vehicle flooring would be less than 3 mm.
4. Click “OK” to confirm.

Now the model should look like the image above. Naturally, you can add internal chamfers or fillets depending on the print orientation to reduce the required support structures.

In the end, this is just one example of how big chunks of material can be removed without affecting the overall look of a model. Try to think about this strategy when designing parts in the first place, as you could save yourself time later on.

Now, before moving on to the actual 3D printing workflow, it’s always advisable to check a model for any inconsistencies or features that may prove difficult or even impossible to print. Careful attention should be paid to fine details, especially for FDM 3D printing.

Depending on the size of the nozzle, small-sized features could be printed inadequately or even not printed at all. While this kind of issue is often detected during the model slicing, it’s good to think about it while still in the design stage and not waste time going back-and-forth between CAD and slicer.

The “Measure” tool can be an excellent ally for checking the printability of fine details. Let’s take, for example, the frame of our vehicle’s windshield. This should be the finest detail of the model, and it will definitely present a problem if we scale down the entire model during slicing.

The tool is found under the “Inspect” tab in the toolbar. To measure the distance between two entities (edges, surfaces, points), simply select them one after the other. The measured dimension should pop up right on the screen, and further details can be found in the feature window.

For the windshield frame, the middle section is only 1 mm in width. A 0.4-mm nozzle might print this with only one perimeter, so say we want it to be sturdier, with at least two perimeters. The width of this frame would need to be at least 1.6 to 2.0 mm.

Instead of sketching and extruding this section, we could use a much more straightforward feature called “Press Pull”. It’s located in the toolbar, and you use it by simply selecting a surface and then pulling or pushing on the blue arrow. Alternatively, you can provide a positive or negative dimension.

The Extrude feature can indeed achieve something similar, but only with flat surfaces. The Press Pull feature is much more versatile, working very well with curved or oddly shaped profiles. It’s a quick and convenient tool for adjusting fine details.

Alright! We’re finally ready to move on and get this model into a slicer. To do that, we need to export all the separate parts from our model in a polygonal mesh format.

The most common mesh format for 3D printing is the STL. It can be a very lightweight file format and is used as the default in most online 3D model repositories. It does, of course, have its disadvantages. For example, it can’t store data like measurement units or color.

Thanks to the ever-growing interest in 3D printing technologies, a new standardized and open-source mesh format was introduced in 2015: the 3MF. It was created to address STL issues and become the default format for 3D printing eventually.

Lucky for us, Fusion 360 can export 3D models in both of these formats, so you can choose whatever suits you for a given application.

Export

1. Expand the “Body” folder under the browser located on the left side of the screen.
2. To export an individual part, right-click on its name and select “Save as Mesh”.
3. Choose the file format from the drop-down menu in the pop-up window.
4. Click “OK”. You will be prompted to choose a folder location for your exported file.

The conversion and exporting process can be quite fast depending on your computer’s hardware and the complexity of the model. If everything goes well, the newly exported model should be ready for slicing and 3D printing.

Speaking of 3D slicing, many people don’t know that Fusion 360 has a built-in slicing engine for 3D printing. It was released back in 2020 as part of Autodesk’s strategy to incorporate 3D printing into its machining CAM workspace.

It brings all of the most important features for getting your files to a 3D printer, but can’t really compete with the extensive control provided by Simplify 3D or the exclusive features offered by Cura and PrusaSlicer.

Still, it can be quite convenient to have both 3D modeling and 3D slicing in a single program. Moreover, it does offer some interesting features like automatic orientation to reduce support structures and a handful of unique infill patterns.

With all of that in mind, Fusion’s own 3D slicer can be an alternative to the more traditional software and is definitely worth checking out.

Congratulations on yet another completed Fusion 360 tutorial! We’ve only scratched the surface, and there are plenty of other features, tools, and functionalities to explore.

In this tutorial, we covered a few ways to make 3D models more 3D printer friendly using Fusion 360, but they’re also valid when designing models from scratch. In fact, if 3D printing is the goal, it’s always best to consider the printing process while designing.

You’ll find that there are a massive number of guides and tutorials for Fusion 360 online, be it on YouTube, using online learning platforms, or most importantly, through Autodesk.

There’s a whole world to unlock once you start playing around with Fusion 360 and STL files. Be sure to check the tutorials on how to import STL files and how to edit them in Fusion 360, as well.

Until next time!