How to take an AutoDesk Inventor Assembly and prepare it for CNC Router, Laser, or Plasma Operation

This Tutorial will show the viewier how to take a Assembly file made in AutoDesk Inventor and prepare it for Cutting operation for CNC Technology and machining software like RDworks, Aspire, Cut2D, VCarve, or others quickly and painlessly. Our desired result is to create a DXF file to be import into the machining software.
The example used is a flatpack chair intended to go to Vcarve on a CNC Router using a .25 compression bit.
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[@woodbot3758]

Enjoyed the video...can you tell me if this chair was actually cut and built and if it was, was it comfortable. Thanks

[@MorrisonInst1973]

Hi Woodbot, yes the chair was made, in fact we have made 6 of them, they are pretty comfortable. We make a lot of chairs here at the college. it is a project for one of the courses. The students have to design the chair to be made from sheet goods, and FEA it out to make sure it will hold the required loads with no fasteners . Check out or Instagram account MorrisonTech and you can see a variety of chairs and other projects we work on.

[@swaags]

is there no way to do the toolpaths in inventor as well? Im working on a very similar 2.5d project for a cnc router

[@MorrisonInst1973]

In regular inventor you can not make toolpaths , however, if you have inventor hms you can. Fusion would be another choice it does have toolpath capabilities in the software. I personally prefer to use a product like Vectric Vcarve or Aspire for my toolpaths for laser, plasma, and routers. its much easier and has my machines built into the library., and I don't need to use a generic code file this way.

[@swaags]

@@MorrisonInst1973 awesome thats very helpful. So v-carve can deal with the dxf file you made here? You need to input all the z axis specs manually in that second software, v-carve or whatever correct? This is basically a 2d template?

[@MorrisonInst1973]

@@swaags That is correct we would need to export out in a different format he we want to bring the z axis data with, for example, if we were craving something, then we would export the model as an stl or something similar. When I bring in a dxf that will require full depth cuts and pocket cuts just make sure you have geometry that is close and allow a overhand on your pocket cuts if they travel past the edge of your work piece so the pocket is square to the edge of the workpiece.
Give me a week or two and I will post a video with full depth cuts and pockets export out as a dxf. This will show you exactly what I am talking about.