Helpful, but not the nail in the coffin I expected.
For users of the basic product, Fusion costs $300/year. For the Ultimate version, it’s $1200/year—the same price everywhere in the world.
They already differentiate (edit: “differentiated between, in that post”) between basic and ultimate in the paid tier, so I still see no expectation (and thus no surprise) that they differentiate the free tier vs. others. In other words, this line is still true:
Fusion is free.
It’s just that the definition of Fusion has changed. But I also appear to have been able to say both “Fusion is $300/yr” and “Fusion is $1200/yr” and both would have been true. That said, I was able to find past precedent (2015-2017 era) that Fusion Startup was identical to Ultimate and the only difference at the time was between paid tiers.
Dunno… sheisty, unfortunate, bummed, yes. Whether one can solidly state “they promised clearly that free would always be free and fully capable,” I’m not seeing that.
If memory serves, it was an interview oriented towards “Maker” types, but I’m not finding it — may be off-line since it was back when Fusion 360 was first launching. I’m willing to yield the point and will go edit my statement above to reflect this.
Up to you. I maybe wasn’t looking at the correct statement. The one I linked simply looked like you staying there’s evidence for continuing a free tier, not that a free tier would never be limited. I was primarily responding to LiamN’s interpretation.
The bigger issue here is that 2 days ago, folks could sign up for Autodesk Fusion 360 expecting an unlimited number of documents, and rapids to work, and to do tool changes, but the next day they were told that they had two weeks to a month to accept the limitations.
Anyone who is on vacation or away from their computer for this two week period will lose the option to export their designs as DXFs or STEP files, making recovery difficult w/o paying for a license.
I am not familiar with f code editing. Is it possible to combine multiple g codes into one. Or is it simple to add in tool changes to the g code fusion created after The changes?
Remember that $300 is for the first year. Then it will go to $5-600. A year.
The rapidsdon’t bother me much. The active files don’t either. But I have got my entire work flow designed around multiple bits. Having to have separate files would be a complete pain
Yeah, fair enough on that. No easy way to make that transition (assuming it’s inevitable). I mean, kind of reminds me of stuff like Youtube and Amazon Prime music. One day YouTube is all creatives having fun, the next I’ve got like 10 ads crammed into one video (and the option to pay my way out of this with YouTube Red).
Amazon Prime was all happy and free, and then I started having popups every time I opened it to opt out of an Amazon Unlimited trial, having albums with some songs grayed out (only on Unlimited), and a whole bunch of recommended albums only in Unlimited.
These might not be perfect analogies, but again… this fits with typical trends in the freemium model. Get people hooked, then gradually make the free thing less awesome (or simply waaayyy more annoying). It will be interesting to continue to monitor, as if they prune too much of the feature set, they can’t even live up to this being useful for hobbyists (there’s insufficient bait to get them in).
Interesting on the tool changes. What do you currently do, out of curiosity, and do you have a bit setter or some fixture to automatically know you’re at the proper z origin?
I ask as without automatic bit changing, the machine has to stop anyway, so it’s only <1min to change the bit and re-zero and load a new file in Carbide Motion. Carbide Motion still has rapids, so after my gcode using one tool finishes, I rapid to the current xy origin, change the bit, and zero z again (on the work piece or my table).
That said, I don’t have an auto zero block or bit setter so maybe I don’t know what I’m missing!
I use a bit setter. My entire project is one file. First bit is normally a 1/8” drill bit to pre drill hold down screw locations. Then it comes front and center and calls for the next bit normally a larger roughing bit or a facing bit if I’m not using plywood. Then I hit one button and close the enclosure. Will run to bit setter, set bit height automatically, then start cutting automatically. When it’s time for the next bit change it auto stops the spindle, brings it forward and repeat. My spindle speed is set by the g code.
I have some cuts which take hours and I am able to have my wife change bits for me if I need to leave. It says what bit number and I have a bit holder with the bits in order and a picture and description of each bit from the fusion setup sheet. So she can grab the next bit and check the amana part number and get it going gain.
If I could find a way to get it to go to the back of the machine until commanded foward after the predrill for screws she could run the whole thing her self. She just can’t reach around the spindle to screw it down. Arms aren’t long enough.
This sucks, but at the same time I have seen this coming for years. I know several people who own and operate 3D design / manufacturing businesses that have been using the personal license despite not technically qualifying for it for years. These restrictions are there to force those people to move to a paid for license. I am seriously debating paying the $300 for a year long license.
Do not get me wrong though, I am bitching up a storm on their forums about this. They should be going after people who are abusing the license, not the restricting hobbyists.
Ok, that is freaking awesome. Thanks for the description, and I was chuckling the whole time as I have absolutely tried to get my wife excited about the idea of potentially running the machine while I’m away. I guess this was a bit of the case of “I don’t know what I’m missing” and I have a good idea what future upgrades will involve
It’s taken 6 months. And she is very reluctant to do anything with it. I’m not going to publicly say what I had to do to get her help but if it gets anymore difficult I’m screwed ina bad way.
My issue with paying for an annual lic is that fusion sucks at v carving. I have yet to find an effective way to do certain carving and inlays. Especially when compared to v carve.
The program is also glitchy and freezes up all the time. Not a computer issue it’s it’s cloud based system.
Yes Fusion360 is cloud based… for file management. Most of the modeling and tool path work is done on your local PC. What is done in the cloud are things like photo realistic 3D rendering and simulations. You can tell this is the case if you ever try to close the program with an unsaved model. If you choose to save it, it will wait to close Fusion360 till the local copy gets saved in the cloud.
This is also why it is recommended to use a PC that is designed to be a Workstation and not a Gaming system. Meaning install a processor that supports a ton of ECC RAM and has really good single thread performance while having as many cores as possible as well as a workstation graphics card. Gaming graphics cards are basically designed to offer as much FPS as possible. Workstation cards provide greater precision,a ton of ECC RAM, and stability. 3D design software does a bunch math that unfortunately cannot be parallelized. This is why you want a fast processor. ECC RAM means you are far less likely to have a glitch. Workstation cards basically designed for 3D design work.
Once I upgraded from a gaming rig to a proper workstation, Fusion360 became a lot more stable and usable when dealing with complex operations.
VisualCAD got a bare mention at: https://wiki.shapeoko.com/index.php/CAD#3D and FreeMill is mentioned on the CAM page, and Tim Foreman noted using FreeMill pretty early on:
So I read the whole thread, interesting discussion but at this point I don’t quite see why I would break up with Fusion just yet
Whatever is behind “no rapids” can probably be managed in a custom post-processor
multi-tool jobs: worst case scenario I’ll have to export N files and run a script to merge them into a single one with M6 commands between tools, which I naively think is not a deal breaker.
the 10 active files limit sounds annoying, but if I am being honest I only ever work on two or three at a time simultaneously, and if archiving/dearchiving a project takes a few clicks, it’s a non-issue.
Did I miss something else that will make it unbearable to use for doing Shapeoko-related CAM?
If the next update kills it for hobbyists completely (I don’t think they will), then I’ll move on and spend another 10 hours watching tutorial videos for whatever the next popular software is then, and that won’t be a huge deal. The only really critical feature I can’t live without is adaptive clearing toolpaths, and EstlCam does it (albeit in a much less configurable way than Fusion) for a one-time, no cloud, 59$ price tag. And we have @fenrus tools in our arsenal too.
My issue is that some of my designs have 10+ components in them. Those components are saved in separate files. There is a very real possibility that my main design file will be editable after this.
FYI, They’ve updated the blog post with a bit more in depth of the limits getting put in place.
IMO, Fusion 360 is still free and still a great offering even with these limitations. Most any other CAD and CAM that is as easily attainable as Fusion 360 is no where near as feature rich and multi platform supported. Now I am very annoyed with three of the limits they will be introducing:
No Rapids: This is not a “professional” feature, any and every CNC controller supports this and purely just is there to waste your life away. It might be easy enough to added it back in by modifying the post processor or an additional script after the fact but none-the-less its stupid. This I hate the most.
10 Active Documents: This discourages best practices in multi-part assemblies and is just to create a nuisance. @CthulhuLabs, from updates to the blog post, it does sound like multi-part assembly documents can still have over 10 embedded/derived documents, just that archived ones are “read-only” (in reference to edit-in-place)
If you have an assembly with referenced designs in it, the assembly and each reference (if opened) will count as 1 document each. Assemblies can reference active and inactive documents. You will still be able to edit the referenced designs as long as they are also active. If your referenced designs in the assembly are inactive, you can still open your assemblies, but the references will be read only.
Print-only Drawings This is two fold, firstly you can’t export as PDF anymore (have to try if a PDF Virtual Printer will show up) limiting shareability. Also there is a limit to a single sheet per drawing and as is going to count towards your document limit, it is going cause constrained use as well, forcing bad practices.
I am personally disappointed that 4th Axis has completely been removed as I have had plans to add that to my CNC, I was annoyed when they added new 4th Axis operations under their Manufacturing Extension that has a very steep price to it before all this.
I will admit, that this being at least the second time they have restructured the licensing, that I lose more trust that they aren’t going rip out personal license features that I have dire needs for. I however have been impressed with (more lately than ever) with them rolling out updates at a constant pace and feature toggling previews (coming from a software developer myself ). With that I have been planning on subscribing to a professional license, even though at times it is hard to justify as most times I am not making money with any of my projects and time however the times it does (like this year) I am close to their $1K limit for the personal license.
P.S. I forgot about limiting export formats, this again limits shareability, particularly .STEP
). With that I have been planning on subscribing to a professional license, even though at times it is hard to justify as most times I am not making money with any of my projects and time however the times it does (like this year) I am close to their $1K limit for the personal license.