Changes to Fusion Fusion Fusion 360 Free accounts

Special Interest Groups Design
#1

Changes to Fusion 360 Link Here10 active documents means that you have 10 spots for any document to open and be editable at any give time. All your other documents will be stored in your projects in a new archived state. They will remain yours, saved in your projects. You can have unlimited number of archived documents (designs) as well as projects (top level folders in your data panel) in your account. If you are at your 10 document capacity, and at any point you want to revisit an older design and open it up, you can do so by archiving an existing active document and activating the archived one to swap places.

DXF: You will still be able to right click on a sketch in the browser and select Save As DXF.

#2

I’ve seen LOTS of discussions on this across the many forums I follow. Some things mentioned besides the removal of DXF export(except currently from a sketch) is the removal of the exporting in the compatibility format, STEP/STP. And a weird one, removal of rapid feedrate moves which got limited to cutting feedrate. Strange one.

some copy/pastes:

Automatic tool change capability will not be available, and rapid feedrate are limited to cutting feedrate.

Save As DXF is still available from sketch.

DXF will not be a supported file format from File > Export, but you will still be able to right click on a sketch in the browser and select Save As DXF for your laser cutting and routing needs.

Export of STEP will be not be available from the in-product File > Export dialog on Oct. 1, 2020. After Oct. 1, You can still export your designs as STEP file formats via Fusion Team in your browser. This workflow will remain until Jan 19, 2021.

#3

While I really appreciate, enjoy and look forward to these F360 sessions and plan to continue, I have run into a few problems besides recent license changes, which give me pause and consideration of looking for a replacement tool. I’ve probably spent close to 4 hours over the past few days looking at video reviews of the licensing changes and read many forums about the changes and what others are doing.

FreeCAD has come up in all of these discussions as an alternative. Of note, recently I ran across a gem about a $40 annual subscription to a DIY experimental aircraft club which then qualifies for a free educational license of SolidWorks. I’m putting that tidbit in my back pocket as I investigate FreeCAD. Which BTW runs on Macs, Windows and Linux machines. Because there’s been lots of talk about its CAM output capabilities and recent(within the year) updates really improving it, I’m going to see how what I learned from @tim.peachey here and see how it applies. The first 5 minutes of this video tutorial has me blown away at how similar the workflow is but granted, I’m really a rookie at F360 and have not even learned any quick-keys yet. I also have not really used the timeline thing much so missing that will not be a problem while others seem to rely on it for editing and would have to learn how to use the tree model in FreeCAD for that.

Just wanted to put this out there as I look at things differently than most, YMMV. I’m really excited to see how far 3D modeling can get me across CNC, 3D printing and Laser Cutting. I’ve already quite familiar with taking 3D models into 3D printing but was amazed at how well that goes to CNC milling. Topping that off with DXF output of 2D drawings( from the 3D CAD tools ) into Kiri:Moto and Lightburn I’m seeing the importance of having a good CAD tool to work from.

Sorry, posted way more than intended. Check out the video below and I think you’ll be surprised at how similar the workflow is between FreeCAD and Fusion360 for this part. Constraints were my biggest problem with FreeCAD years ago and it looks way better now.

I also found there is a difference between creating and using parameters but not too different. F360 is easier to create the parameters but I like how FreeCAD allows me to show/use the parameter list while the design is active and open. JOKO Engineering shows again how to do this.

#4

The continuing moves to defeature the hobbyist version of Fusion 360 is indeed disappointing. I’m guessing that most of us would be willing to pay a reasonable amount for a hobbyist version similar to where we were before this change. I can’t comment on FreeCAD as I haven’t looked at it yet. SolidWorks certainly has better functionality than Fusion 360, but we should first look at what limitations are on the educational version.

While a lot of UI is likely to be different, the mental approach to parametric modelling is transferable to most other parametric 3D modellers.

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#5

I was able to model the hydroponics float-pump using very similar techniques in FreeCAD as in F360. Lots of parameters, lots of constraints and it told me when over constrained and under constrained.
The Shell feature is called setting a wall thickness and just needed to learn it adds thickness to the outside unless you use a negative value then it’s done from the inside. I couldn’t get it to make a through hole but I need to work on figuring that out. There are tool features for cylindrical differences, cones, cubes, etc so it worked well.

I need to figure out the little things like shelling out all the way through and easiest way to combine parts from 2 different sketch/models. Then I will see if it can do the Canvas thing you showed as I see that as very valuable for replicating parts from images, drawings, etc. There’s a bunch of CAM output capabilities so will have to investigate that too. I also like that it works well with my 3D Connexion mouse.

And @tim.peachey years ago I had been shown the basics of FreeCAD but I just couldn’t grok it but after your walk-thrus and discussions on techniques it did not feel alien at all and most time was spent finding where featured tools were. Super thankful for you helping us learn CAD.

#6

Watch out, seems they introduced bugs while crippling the personal use version(removal of rapid moves). I found this recently on a CNC forum of the guy who designed the X-Controller:

Fyi people: the post processor for the personal use version of f360 is broken. I haven’t checked in detail, but i’m sure the issue is in the comments emitted in the nc files that rapid retracts are gone. If you get rid of them, the toolpaths work fine (but slow) again.
Ive already spotted quite a few bug reports.

#7

Wow, Autodesk has started advertising the paid subscription version of Fusion 360 on Facebook and it’s really pissed people off…

“After you neuter the hobby version, you push ads for the pay edition?? Genius”

“How can I ever trust you as a company again after this bait and switch?”

“I had though about going paid, but why would I pay for a software that will hold my designs for ransom? I’ll pass and support other more customers friendly platforms that don’t change the TOS so you can never leave.”

and the list goes on like a CVS sales receipt. Some didn’t know STL export isn’t gone and I helped clarify that and others didn’t know they said they’d reenable STEP export which I also tried to clarify. But I think most understand the game being played, ie move to paid cloud based subscription or move onto something else.