Author Topic: The end of Fusion 360 for hobbyists  (Read 3955 times)

Offline Muzzer

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Re: The end of Fusion 360 for hobbyists
« Reply #30 on: September 21, 2020, 12:46:00 PM »
To some extent, yes it's not unreasonable to be paying for access - but the hike from zero to ~$500 is a problem for many users. It's particularly unfortunate for the young, students, makers, retirees etc who have little or no means to pay. For the rest of us, some of the critical CAM features have been moved into these "extensions" that would require further significant (and ongoing) outlay and redefine "unaffordable". The proposal to dial rapids back to feedrates seems petty and daft. I'm hovering over whether to cough up for the license but this would still leave me with a largely unusable 4th axis, as I still wouldn't be able to generate toolpaths for it.

They have built up a good user base and a lot of good will over the last 5 years, so blowing a lot of that on a money shot seems unfortunate. There have been a lot of bystanders predicting this kind of move for some time. There are many young (and current) engineers who will remember the impact of this behaviour for years to come, long after the Autodesk product managers have won and spent their performance bonuses.

Offline cnr6400

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Re: The end of Fusion 360 for hobbyists
« Reply #31 on: September 21, 2020, 12:47:52 PM »
I agree Dave. In my opinion if hobbyists can get usable 3D CAD for $500 it is a good bargain. Professional CAD such as Solidworks is about $7500 to get started and $2500 per year for maintenance and support and this includes new revisions.

Compare the $500 to what you might spend on a TV or high end kitchen appliances or a piece of exercise equipment - they are all expensive for what they are. Look at the value the CAD software brings.

In my experience with CAD over many years free software never stays free forever, and software firms come and go and are acquired etc.
"I've cut that stock three times, and it's still too short!"

Offline kvom

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Re: The end of Fusion 360 for hobbyists
« Reply #32 on: September 21, 2020, 12:58:27 PM »
I use CamBam, which has a cheap 1-time license, 3D toolpaths, and an involved used base.  For 2.5D machining, which I do almost 100%, it's hard to beat.  It does have some decent 2D drawing capacity as well.

For some rotary work there is a plugin to map a 2D toolpath to wrap onto a round surface.

For 3D machining, one would need a CAD program capable of outputting STL files.  Onshape might be a good option.

Offline Woodguy

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Re: The end of Fusion 360 for hobbyists
« Reply #33 on: September 21, 2020, 01:07:40 PM »
If you make money from it, then you should pay for it.


Some of you are comfortable with this second round of "bait and switch" but what happens in 3 years when the deal runs out?


Personally I don't do subscription services. I paid for  a 2 seat license for Alibre which is updated to December 2019 and that is my fallback though I confess to being a bit rusty in its use. The lack of integrated cam is unfortunate, but there are some alternatives and I will manage as I did before Fusion came along.




There is now a hint on the ME forum of something new in integrated cad/cam but so far only a hint. See the last post on this page: https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=167916

Offline Woodguy

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Re: The end of Fusion 360 for hobbyists
« Reply #34 on: September 25, 2020, 09:57:51 PM »
Step files are back in the personal license - yipee!
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