Heads up to Fusion users who have the free "Personal Use" license - Autodesk are introducing some significant changes from 01/10/2020. Changes to Fusion 360 for Personal Use | Fusion 360 Blog Alex.
No STEP export, limited drawings with no direct PDF export, limited openable files, no more than 3 axes, no probing, no toolchanging(?!), and no "rapid feed", whatever that means- no G0 sounds unlikely but maybe with no probing or toolchanges it's not. Sounds like an absolute dumpster fire. Not that I wasn't partially expecting this for the last few years, but still. I can afford $800 for a three-year license... The question is, do I want to? Is there a meaningful alternative?
Two weeks notice as well! I definitely can't afford a commercial license and I feel particularly aggrieved given how many people I have recommended Fusion to - some of whom have bought a paid license. Yes - I was expecting it - it's not the first time Autodesk have done something similar. Alex.
Yeah it's the lack of notice that's the real kick in the pants. I think they're TRYING to make it so that people can't realistically arrange alternatives before the deadline, forcing them to buy at least a year of commercial single-user, maybe to juice the quarterly earnings report at a time when everyone's down on revenue because so many people have paused payments and they have that ludicrously inflated stock price to try and justify. Adobe ended up creating Affinity with this type of behaviour, maybe something similar will happen here. I hear a lot about BobCAD, I don't see any pricing on their site, though it looks like Google scraped it once and it's in the mid-four-figures. Alibre Design Professional is a $1000 perpetual license for all the same features, which seems doable, but it's at least the same amount again for CAM from say MecSoft or someone, which is... Less doable. Seems like about all most people can really do right now is suck it up, pay the $300, and try and find something to migrate to over the next year. I dunno, really.
Looks like I need to figure out Vcarve since I bought it last Spring. Honestly, I would not have a problem paying $10 a month for a hobby version. Some months I do not even use it. I am curious what I can do with some more advanced Vectric stuff. I would rather pay $1600 one time than $300 per year which after 3 years will be $495/year. I guess I need to start saving my files. Hmmm... VisualCAD is free.
Same- $10 a month for the full version would be irritating, but fine. I don't buy that AUTODESK don't have or can't come up with a way of figuring out who's making a ton of money with Fusion and who isn't. Just reduce that original $100k figure to say, $50k, or even $30k. $10 a month below it, $25 a month above it. Doesn't seem like it's that hard to figure out. I think I'm gonna have to get at least a one year sub purely so I don't lose the entire rest of this month to file saving. VisualCAD/CAM is $2500 for the 4-axis version. As long as VisualCAD standalone can export STEP files, it might be a good idea to start practicing with that anyway. Even if I temporarily have to export them into Fusion to CAM. FreeCAD seems to be much better these days than it used to be too, and does include a CAM module that claims to be multi-axis capable. Open Source too, maybe OpenBuilds could help out there.
They reduced that $100K to $1K some time ago. What annoys me is the work I did (steep learning curve for me starting from scratch) on my post processor so that I could use multiple wcs and single file for multiple tools (with macro calls for manual tool changes and Z probing) has just gone down the pan. Learning that stuff was a large part of the hobby for me - I know there are people here who can do that in their sleep, but I did start from a pretty low base Alex.
Glad we never finished up the Toolchanger in CONTROL Toolchanges · Issue #26 · OpenBuilds/OpenBuilds-CONTROL Jokes aside, we will finish it (Vectric, and other CAMs still have toolchanges)
Thanks for the head's up, Alex. Does anyone know how the elimination of rapid moves is being implemented? Will G0 still be used but with the cut feed rate applied instead of the rapid feed rate? Will the OpenBuilds post require update?
Keqing Song answered one of my questions on the Fusion 360 Hobbyists FB page but was silent on this one. Not sure what that means...
I saw he was staying silent on several things, this being the primary one. I assume non-cut moves will simply be programmed as G1s- presumably they'll simply use the cutting feed for that op so you can't find and replace, say, "F2000" lines with G0 whilst leaving "F400" lines alone. It'll all be "F400". Why, I don't really understand. Seems arbitrary and capricious to me.
I was thinking the same regarding G1 vs G0. I also agree with your sentiment. I wish they would also clarify how assemblies handle (or do not handle) archived components...
Ha! I saw the comment thread that went round and around about that and he just point-blank refused to answer whilst saying he wasn't avoiding answering?! My guess, while I was reading it, was it's because "archived" files are able to be pulled into other files for assembly, because they're not being "opened" for editing- the cloud isn't gonna have to deal with changes, they'll be static components. But because they think that seems super obvious, they literally don't know how, or even that they need to, explain it explicitly.
I added this question to Kevin Kennedy's Google Docs Feedback Form. I'll get an answer or die trying. LOL.
I am bummed. I love Fusion360, but I am happy I bought Estlcam. At least I do not need to worry about loosing the CAM portion of Fusion 360 since I rarely used it. Although, OpenBuilds CAM looks very similar, but I do not see the .stl machining ability.
No need to panic just yet, unless you need to export any step files, in which case you have until the end of the month. I read somewhere that non-cutting moves will be coded as G1's, not sure how the feedrate is going to be set though - I suspect AD haven't worked that bit out yet! Should be easy to come up with a post-post-processor that looked for Z safe height moves and changed the G1's to G0's. Alex.
I think I may still be able to get away with the free version. Most stuff I do is just a 2D file I export as a DXF for my CAM software. I think the only time I have saved STEP files is when I put something on Thingiverse that someone may want to modify.
Here is something interesting I found. I am not an Experimental Aircraft maker, but the Experimental Aircraft Association has a $40 per year membership fee and you get: I could care less about the rest of the benefits, but $40 beats $300. Aviation Association | Experimental Aircraft Association
in the postprocessor are a collection of event handlers. onRapid handles the output of rapid codes and my guess is that the internal processor will just never call it, instead calling the onLinear event, maybe with a high feedrate as already defined in the options. since Fusion can already do this when you tick the 'dont use rapids' option it is not much of a change at all.
That was my first thought, but in that case, what's the point of doing it at all? If you have a "high" feedrate and a "cutting" feedrate, you... Still have rapids. There's no point in paying to create and maintain two different codebases to accomplish the exact same ends.
This might be useful for anyone who does need to export lots of step files. Jnesselr/fusion-360-total-exporter Alex.
I've been running on an educational license for years. At no point has it ever given me a time limit warning or anything of the nature. From what I understand, the edu license is essentially the full version. If I notice any change to the way it responds to the upcoming update, I'll relay that info here. As for acquiring and edu license, I got mine when I was in school. However there was no actual verification. It literally only asked what school I went to. Just throwing that out there.
I believe that they have got a lot tighter on the education licences, sometimes demanding proof. There are no changes planned for the educational licence though. Alex.
If the price is not a barrier, is Fusion 360 the recommended tool with a reasonable learning curve, short path to productivity, best support, and most capability? My use, initially, is for a machine to cut 2D steel parts for personal projects. My build is using Openbuild electronics and some mechanics. Judging from Rob Taylor's commitment to purchase it, your recommendation seems to be yes if you can afford it and to consider other alternatives if you cannot. I'm a huge fan of opensource software and solutions that can fit everyone's budget. However, I'm also hugely experienced in being frustrated by its lack of support and continuity problems.
If you are just cutting with a 3 axis mill, the free version of Fusion360 should be fine for you. I use it all the time and now that they have made the .step file export an option again, I will continue to use the free version. I do not want to have to learn a new CAD program.
Thanks for the feedback. I am concerned because of the time-limited 40% notices I'm getting and whether they will be turning off capabilities.
