Cura drops Fusion360 objects in the corner instead of the center

[markopanama 0]

I've been using Fusion360 with Cura for more than a year. It has always dropped objects into Cura in the center of the bed perfectly. Then, one day is started dropping them in the corner near the origin - but not at it - to one side and above the ground plane. I can drag them manually, but it would be great to have this working again.

 

I have three printers and it does the same with all of them. The center origin check box is off on all. Loading an stl from the file system works fine.

 

It's hard to tell if this is a Cura or Fusion problem. Any ideas?

 

Thanks in advance

Mark

[GregValiant 1,307]

Typically an STL file has no location data in it.  Cura would bring it in at the center-of-geometry and place the bottom face on the build plate and the XY center point at the build plate mid-point.  I have noticed on occasion that when I open an STL in something like "MS 3D Builder" an STL may be anywhere.  That would seem to indicate that there is some sort of location data in at least some STL files (else they would all come in at the same place?).  It may be dependent on the CAD to STL translator.

In the "Preferences/Configure Cura/General - Viewport Behavior" is a setting for "Automatically drop models on the build plate".  If it is unchecked then a model might float over the build plate.

If you have the Mesh Tools plugin loaded then under "Extensions/Mesh Tools/Mesh Tool Settings... is "Randomize Position On Load".  If that is turned on it will...(sigh)...randomize position on load.

Edited September 1, 2021 by GregValiant

[markopanama 0]

Greg, thanks so much for looking into this. What I know is that the files coming from F360 are loading in Cura at the coordinates where they were in F360 relative to the origin. I can reposition them, but who is deciding that is where they should be? 

 

I tried trashing and reloading Cura, but no improvement. I will next try trashing all the support files. I also noticed that Cura is giving me gibberish in the menu popups. Must be something wrong somewhere. 

 

mark 

 

[GregValiant 1,307]

"...but who is deciding that is where they should be?"

 

@ahoeben is a primary contributor to Cura and is here a lot.  He may know, or he may be able to point you in the right direction to figure this out.

When I bring models in from my old version of Mechanical Desktop / Inventor they are always STL files and always come in at the midpoint of the Cura build surface no matter where they were located in model space when I exported them from the CAD program.  I just move them around so the printer uses different muscles and spreads it's wear out.

 

The "Printer" origin is generally the left front corner and the "Model" origin is the midpoint of the build surface.  I don't know if one takes precedence over the other during import, or if some location info might be within a 3mf file or an OBJ file or some other acceptable file format.

[markopanama 0]

Edit: I found a good workaround. In Fusion 360, on the send to 3D printer dialog, if instead of choosing the Cura menu item, I pick "custom" and then select the Cura app, everything works as normal again. Must be a bug in the F360 application chooser.. Thanks for your help.

 

The mystery is that over the last year I have made hundreds of prints with this setup and everything worked perfectly. Then all of a sudden one day, it didn't. 

 

OK, I cross checked using my laptop. Both desktop and laptop are M1 Macs, latest OS. 

 

On the laptop, Cura is 4.9.1. Fusion is 2.0.10813

On the desktop, Cura 4.10.0

Both versions of Cura have garbage characters in some of the dropdown menus

Here's a clue: Fusion thinks I am running Macos 10.16.0 when I am actually on 11.5.2  WTF??

 

Since the same thing is happening on two different machines with different Cura versions, it must be a systemic problem that is affecting other people too.

 

Exporting the object and dropping it on Cura from the finder works fine. Must be the Fusion 3D exporter telling Cura where to put the print. Somehow...

 

 

Edited September 7, 2021 by markopanama

[tinkergnome 927]

35 minutes ago, markopanama said:

Both versions of Cura have garbage characters in some of the dropdown menus

Here's a clue: Fusion thinks I am running Macos 10.16.0 when I am actually on 11.5.2  WTF??

 

Another part of this problem perhaps?

 

https://support.ultimaker.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018141480-Ultimaker-Cura-is-not-fully-compatible-with-the-Apple-M1-chip

 

[Aubs 0]

Is it possible you're importing 3MF files? - I wondered about this and found this post which answers the question:

 

 

I've also noted a possible related issue and raised it below, I've linked a screencast of what I noticed:

 

 

[geert_2 558]

I don't know Fusion 360, but just as a general remark: couldn't it be that there is some fixed or stuck part in the F360 template, that is always loaded when you start a new design? For example if the template would contain a border, or a patch with your name and logo, as in technical drawings? Even if it is only a piece of unprintable text, or a surface instead of solid 3D-part, it might end up in the STL or 3mf-file, and throw off the alignment calculations in Cura? Something like that? Just guessing...