-
Spring 2024 meetup in Calgary - date Saturday, April 20/2024. discussion Please RSVP Here to confirm and get your invitation and the location details. RSVP NOW so organizers can plan to get sufficient food etc. One week to go! More info and agenda
-
We are having email/registration problems again. Diagnosis is underway. New users sorry if you are having trouble getting registered. We are exploring different options to get registered. Contact the forum via another member or on facebook if you're stuck. Update -> we think it is fixed. Let us know if not.
Changes to Fusion 360 for personal use
- Thread starter PeterT
- Start date
good one!
gerritv
Gerrit
I can confirm that the EAA Solidworks has CAM. For US$40 it was a no brainer. It is the Educational License with all the goodies including Electrical and PCB. Even imports .ipt/.iam files from Fusion360 quite well.
Your access to SW training is limited, but YT has plenty to go with. Also some libraries provide access to Lynda.com who have a large selection of SW training videos as well (and plenty more subjects to keep you out of trouble). Even smallish St Catahrines has that access.
Gerrit
Your access to SW training is limited, but YT has plenty to go with. Also some libraries provide access to Lynda.com who have a large selection of SW training videos as well (and plenty more subjects to keep you out of trouble). Even smallish St Catahrines has that access.
Gerrit
The official word on the changes. Explains it quite clearly.
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/supp...articles/Fusion-360-Free-License-Changes.html
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/supp...articles/Fusion-360-Free-License-Changes.html
Hi list, when it comes to computer software I'm not the brightest penny more so with CAD program due to the fact I've never used one. As much as I'm interested and willing to give one a try I find myself totally confused by the chatter re: Fusion 360-Free-License-Changes. Who the heck is Lars, where does he fit into the equation? Yes I'm left totally in the dark.
Only thing I got out of the posts is Fusion 360 free is/was a good CAD although their free program isn't any longer.
Would someone kindly put all this background noise into layman's terms so that some of us can digest what's really going on!
Only thing I got out of the posts is Fusion 360 free is/was a good CAD although their free program isn't any longer.
Would someone kindly put all this background noise into layman's terms so that some of us can digest what's really going on!
Fusion is still free for hobbyists. Some higher end features have been moved to the pay for version. The changes are designed so people doing commercial work will need to buy the license. Autodesk didn't do a very good job explaining all the changes and what they mean in a practical way but the article in message #25 does explain it well. People with a CNC machine with a tool changer wanting to make parts productively will have to buy the license (me). But I don't think too many others on the forum will be affected in practical use. People in general have really over reacted I think. This is a free version of a commercial software package - of course it's limited. Autodesk has invested tens of millions I'm sure in developing this - of course they want to sell it. I would too. All the alternatives are significantly more money (thousands more) or far less capable. So I'll be buying a license but I don't see a reason for probably 99% of forum members to need to or to be impacted by the changes. You can still edit everything, 3d print, export to some formats good enough, even use CNC/CAM.
Lars is a well know you tuber in the fusion community making fusion educational videos. He works for Autodesk but he seems to be pretty above board.
I decided to do due diligence and check out what Bobcad and Solidworks might cost. Neither has even gotten back to me. But other members have indicated it's many thousand and more every year in some cases. So Fusion yah it's going to cost me (but probably not you) some money every year but I view that as just a cost of running my shop. I probably spend the fusion license cost on heat and electricity every year too. I get really good value out of it and I use it all the time so I think it's right that I pay something for it's use.
Lars is a well know you tuber in the fusion community making fusion educational videos. He works for Autodesk but he seems to be pretty above board.
I decided to do due diligence and check out what Bobcad and Solidworks might cost. Neither has even gotten back to me. But other members have indicated it's many thousand and more every year in some cases. So Fusion yah it's going to cost me (but probably not you) some money every year but I view that as just a cost of running my shop. I probably spend the fusion license cost on heat and electricity every year too. I get really good value out of it and I use it all the time so I think it's right that I pay something for it's use.
gerritv
Gerrit
Fusion360 remains a great CAD/CAM package, free to use for hobbiests. It has some new restrictions, 10 active documents (those you can edit, the rest of your documents are archived, but you can swap them in/out). Also now limited to 3 axis CAM tool path generation, 4th axis was removed.
For most hobby use that is more than adequate. Alternates such as FreeCad are works-in-progress and IMO not worth persuing esp. if you want/need CAM. If all you need is CAD then there are alternatives.
I opted to use the Solidworks EAA.org license offer as I am looking to use 4th axis for engraving dials etc. It is US$0/year (for eaa membership) and restricted to non-commercial use.
Gerrit
For most hobby use that is more than adequate. Alternates such as FreeCad are works-in-progress and IMO not worth persuing esp. if you want/need CAM. If all you need is CAD then there are alternatives.
I opted to use the Solidworks EAA.org license offer as I am looking to use 4th axis for engraving dials etc. It is US$0/year (for eaa membership) and restricted to non-commercial use.
Gerrit
Actually under file I found a print option. It printed but needs adjustment to fit on a 8-1/2 X 11 sheet. Selecting print didn't bring up the windows print dialog.
Yup, that was there and worked thanks! Adobe then printed it nicely on 8-1/2 X 11. So I guess this might work for me after all.
The free version of fusion 360 I find has plenty of features to design a project. Manufacturing on the other hand, in my case is better off done with sheetcam since I use it only for cnc plasma cutting. Sheetcam makes it so much easier to generate clean tool paths out of sketches with fine detail, and it allows you to array parts for hi productivity.
Johnwa
Ultra Member
Did it print to scale? I could never get fusion to do it directly. I had to save it as a PDF first.
I'm not a Fusion guy but most of the CAD programs dating back 25 years have you set up some kind of print template(s) where you would specify paper/plotter size, portrait/landscape, scale, title box, border..... Then you would select that appropriate template & print. Whether that job gets delivered to a physical printer or a PDF writer is more under the control of the PC/OS/hardware vs the application itself. Now it could be Fusion ejamacashanol has turned off these features too, so you don't get cocky & try & commercialize your design by printing plans. I'm sure there are Fusion answers in internetland, but I would be bummed if that's all it had for output options.
No, I don't think so. Hard to tell though. It over flowed the margins by a fair bit and I lost track of what the scale should be. My goal was to produce a dimensioned drawing.
Last edited:
gerritv
Gerrit
Fusion360 has drawing templates, with title blocks etc. It is done at time of producing the drawing, well before printing. The free version only allows print, so print to pdf is the best option.
Printers, esp. laser ones, seldom print accurately enough to scale from the drawing. You would need to use the system print dialog to change the % of scaling. But then a properly dimensioned drawing should not need scaling.
For use as a template that scale calibration tinkering would only need to be done for a specific printer.
gerrit
Printers, esp. laser ones, seldom print accurately enough to scale from the drawing. You would need to use the system print dialog to change the % of scaling. But then a properly dimensioned drawing should not need scaling.
For use as a template that scale calibration tinkering would only need to be done for a specific printer.
gerrit
Hi Craig, reading your comments on Fusion 360 for hobbyists I view it as a success story, congratulations. So I took the liberty of downloading the program to my older PC, unsure how long it will take me to put something together however that's where it stands for now. Keep up the good work!