News: Changes to AutoDesk Fusion 360 for Personal Use

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sliptonic
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Re: News: Changes to AutoDesk Fusion 360 for Personal Use

Post by sliptonic »

The changes that affect CAM are really serious. Some highlights:

No Rapid (G0) moves
"Rapid moves: Rapid moves traverse long distances across large machines at significantly faster speeds than the cut feedrate. Higher end machines typically have longer distances to travel and faster rapid speeds, making this feature valuable to those in a commercial setting but unnecessary for personal use."

No Tool Changes
"Removing automatic tool changes means you will not be able to post operations that use more than one tool. You can still post multiple operations, so long as they all use the same tool. This means that if your program uses multiple tools, you’ll need to post each section individually. "

Unless I'm missing something, this isn't really true. I don't have an ATC but I use multiple tools in jobs all the time. My mill has tool holders so I can change tools with repeatability. This changes doesn't just affect ATC, it affects anyone who uses tool holders as well.

This gem is nice:
"If you’ve generated toolpaths using functionality that’s no longer accessible for personal use, you’ll still be able to access and post process those toolpaths. However, you won’t be able to make any changes to them."

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sliptonic
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Re: News: Changes to AutoDesk Fusion 360 for Personal Use

Post by sliptonic »

ickby wrote: Thu Sep 17, 2020 1:50 pm Do I see this correctly, in the free version there is no way to export the Fusion Models in non-autodesk file formats except converting to mesh? So also no way for the users to bring their files into FreeCAD except as mesh?
There's a window before changes take effect, but yes that appears to be correct. Vendor lock-in at its finest.
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Re: News: Changes to AutoDesk Fusion 360 for Personal Use

Post by Kunda1 »

sliptonic wrote: Thu Sep 17, 2020 3:35 pm
@sliptonic care to due to twitter support for Path. Specifically:
https://twitter.com/FreeCADNews/status/ ... 6083558400
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Re: News: Changes to AutoDesk Fusion 360 for Personal Use

Post by saso »

People should test the possibility to save the model from fusion to inventor and try to import the inventor files since we have support for them with the InventorLoader add-on...

Update: googling a bit around it seems like saving from fusion to inventor will give the users more or less the same results as if they for example save to step, so to say no features history https://designandmotion.net/design-2/ma ... -and-back/
Last edited by saso on Thu Sep 17, 2020 4:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: News: Changes to AutoDesk Fusion 360 for Personal Use

Post by DeepSOIC »

Should we maybe create an announcement wiki page with a brief faq for those coming from f360? I know very little about f360, but still i think it will be nice to list some gotchas like toponaming and fillets, and a brief overview of the situation with assembly workbenches, ...
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Re: News: Changes to AutoDesk Fusion 360 for Personal Use

Post by kkremitzki »

sliptonic wrote: Thu Sep 17, 2020 3:35 pm
ickby wrote: Thu Sep 17, 2020 1:50 pm Do I see this correctly, in the free version there is no way to export the Fusion Models in non-autodesk file formats except converting to mesh? So also no way for the users to bring their files into FreeCAD except as mesh?
There's a window before changes take effect, but yes that appears to be correct. Vendor lock-in at its finest.
Such a short window, though, October 1st! Hah! They don't make it easy to take this change.
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Re: News: Changes to AutoDesk Fusion 360 for Personal Use

Post by drmacro »

There is a post on Hackaday that was near 200 comments last I looked.

There were many upset about this, many said "told ya", many asking about alternatives.

FreeCAD was mentioned by several and of course the clamor of "oh the interface isn't pretty", "it crashes all the time", "it's hard to learn"...the usual bla, bla, bla.

Oh well...
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Re: News: Changes to AutoDesk Fusion 360 for Personal Use

Post by clif »

I bet my fellow maker buddies don't think that I'm so foolish going from F360 to FreeCAD last year after the last change in terms. :D

I spent a lot of time evaluating F360, Sketchup, and others for 3D solids (3D printing and 3-axis machining) and here is my humble advice:
F360 has a large community that publish YouTube video tutorials to help beginners. I watched all of Brad's videos, bought his book and that helped for Path Workbench. I still look for video guidance on the rapidly changing features so I can make the most of this tool. One of the advantages F360 has is that it is more intuitive to use. They also have massive amounts of example projects and advice on techniques.
Keep publishing video tutorials, etc. because this tool is changing fast and old tutorials quickly become stale.

I'm committed with sticking with FreeCAD because I can make it work for me and simply cannot justify the expense of a commercial tool unless I turn my hobby into income. Thank you all for the great work!
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Re: News: Changes to AutoDesk Fusion 360 for Personal Use

Post by vanuan »

drmacro wrote: Thu Sep 17, 2020 4:57 pm FreeCAD was mentioned by several and of course the clamor of "oh the interface isn't pretty", "it crashes all the time", "it's hard to learn"...the usual bla, bla, bla.
It's an honest feedback. Is the interface pretty? No. Does it crash often? Yes. Does it have a steep learning curve? Yes.
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Re: News: Changes to AutoDesk Fusion 360 for Personal Use

Post by drmacro »

vanuan wrote: Thu Sep 17, 2020 7:18 pm It's an honest feedback. Is the interface pretty? No. Does it crash often? Yes. Does it have a steep learning curve? Yes.
Maybe so, but you have already made it clear you feel that way on many occasions. ;)

My opinions and experience:

Is it pretty? do you want to make models or look at pretty pictures. I want to design stuff, don't care about looks.
(Note: I also admit to be an old curmudgeon who's used far more clunky interfaces for CAD systems...have you ever used Cadra?)

Does it crash a often? Not for me.

Does it have a steep learning curve? Maybe, but once again, I don't see it. If a new user chooses to attempt to design car bodies on day one, bad on them. What I see is people trying to run marathons before they can stand. I don't know of any cad system where that's going get anything but a bad taste. (And, I do know a lot of them...)

Let me stress again...my opinions, my experience. YMMV, as well as others. And, I don't debate that many do have differing, and in many cases valid, opinions on these topics. ;)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Spock: "...His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking."
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