Fusion 360 Personal Plan LIMITATIONS (Concerns + Alternatives???)

[@BearNPum]

NOTE to all: Step is going to continue in the free license. Thanks for the info Angus. Continuing on as a very satisfied hobbyist using an amazing product.

[@BrainSlugs83]

Source?

[@DrewHerrema]

@@BrainSlugs83 Check out autodesk's blog post. The orignal post has been updated with the change. "Changes to Fusion 360 for Personal Use By: Keqing Song | Posted 1 day ago UPDATE Sept. 25, 2020: STEP Export stays in Fusion 360 for personal use"

[@onsafari]

I can confirm this to be true. I have just received an email from "The Fusion 360 team".

[@ToniCorvera]

That does make a lot more sense to me. Now Fusion 360 Personal is limited in capabilities, but not blatantly crippled to lock you in.

[@Qwarzz]

I was very relieved to get email from Autodesk saying this.

[@Shawn_White]

If I could buy a license outright for a reasonable price say $700 I'd do it in a heart beat, however renting software is a road I refuse to go down.

[@shadow7037932]

Absolutely agree. When Adobe went with subscription model for Lightroom, I and many other pro/hobby photographers switched over to CaptureOne. I don't mind paying a high price for a one off license.

[@marcus_w0]

You could get the 3 years plan for around that money. And 3 years is a normal use cycle for many of those softwares - after that you have to pay for the upgrade version anyways. For example Cinema 4D once was $3,500 and came up with a new version every two years. The upgrade then was $800 at the time.

[@tylerfishingonthewater773]

You can bye a 3d printer with much money that is just plain ridiculous

[@marcus_w0]

@@tylerfishingonthewater773 If you need the features, you've gotta pay 'em. Easy. It's not like they're gonna put you a knife on the chest and force you. The features fusion for hobbyists still has is much more than any other free product. Yeah - they cut corners. And myself hates, that I now have to consider a professional plan because they got rid of the 5-axis milling and tool change. But to be perfectly honest: These are features of softwares MUCH more expensive than any of their plans. And my 5-axis mill did cost me several times that money to build. And I designed it with the free version of fusion - there would be no way I could have done that with any other free software in that fashion. Yeah - I foremost use it as a tool for my hobby - but tools have prices, and hobbies are expensive sometimes.

[@apatheticlungs1577]

@@marcus_w0 Upgrading in that scenario is a choice and not a mandate, however. I for instance still use a standalone version of photoshop almost ten years later at this point in a semi-professional capacity as it is still perfectly good for my particular needs. While obviously, that isn't going to be true for everyone, software does not necessarily have to be considered disposable on the basis of new iterations existing, and a subscription model necessitates the idea that you must pay for upgrades needed or not.

[@Insomnii95]

Regardless if it isn't too bad or not. I hate when companies start limiting later versions (especially if they don't let you stay on older versions). So even if it isn't as bad now, I'd rather jump ship before it's starts sinking.

[@tin2001]

Yep... I don't mind if feature sets change for different price brackets with new releases, but I absolutely hate when you are forced to upgrade via automatic updates, and they strip features in the update... Slightly off topic rant follows: Windows 10 has been doing this too. Pro lost the ability to block access to games via group policy a while back, and recently they removed it's ability to defer updates... I'm half expecting they'll remove the RDP feature from Pro in 12 months, and maybe stop Pro from being able to join a domain/AD so they can tell everyone to just buy Enterprise.

[@jothain]

I still hate Dassault for disabling free 2D Cad. I could've even bought one time license for modest fee, but fuck those subscription expensive deals

[@barrettjacobsen6614]

It’s specifically marketed as cloud based software - why are you talking about versions like you were promised the ability to stick to a version. And this is literally only a change if you’re getting the app for free - maybe you just expect too much or feel you are a bit too entitled to these developers’ time and energy.

[@ArandomNutter]

This is why you don't trust cloud services

[@cocofilms5524]

Cloud credits are very annoying.

[@hpept]

they all do behave the same...

[@BeefIngot]

I really hate how much everyone just gets on with it. Its why we need strong consumer protection laws now more than ever, yet we keep getting weaker and weaker on that front. Corporations have managed to either get people not to care or pretend to be the victim (see Epic playing the victim right now as a great example).

[@garfieldnate]

Exactly. As long as you are using cloud-based software, you are borrowing their computer. If you can't take the risk of losing access, stick to local software and don't let it phone home!

[@stinkyham9050]

@@BeefIngot Consumer protection? How do you feel you're a consumer when you've been given free software to use for years?

[@StefanGotteswinter]

Alibre. Atom3d is affordable like a cheap 3d printer and a fairly solid parametric cad - Not near as sexy and hip as Fusion, but you buy it once and you own it. I went for the full package with Alibre Design Expert, but for most hobby applications that overkill.

[@SamuelSarette]

I wish these companies had reasonable consumer pricing, instead of expecting us to all pay corporate prices.

[@TheyForcedMyHandLE]

I thought their pricing was somewhat reasonable, actually. Maybe that's just because I'm used to SolidWorks pricing $$$

[@legomanTJ]

Any software that profits from corporations should be free for consumers. It's a profitable business model.

[@legomanTJ]

@Masterpiece Tools incorrect. If a business is found using a free license they can be sued by auto desk since that's part of the terms of service

[@TheyForcedMyHandLE]

@@legomanTJ How is what he said incorrect. Did you read the actual words he wrote? For your previous comment too, free to consumers can be a good business model for some businesses, but obviously not for others. For example, I don't think a company that develops and profits from weapons guidance system software ought to just freeware their software to the public.

[@robguyatt9602]

A business producing a product can charge what they like. If the market is there for their pricing then they survive. If not they don't. STFU with whines like "corporate prices". Do you think they owe you a cheap deal? Grow up! Get out there in the real world and learn what it is to compete for market share.

[@liamtwentyman7275]

My biggest issue with their changes are the speed at which this has happened, and the price. I personally feel they are trying to get people to panic buy into their subscription model, with the lure of the 40% discount etc, under the pressure of the 10 day limit. If they had given us say, 6 months warning, and a more resonably priced hobbyists subscription, I would have actively considered staying with them. However, a few hundred dollars a year for CAD software I might use once a week? That is just not personally justifiable. Maybe 40 - 50 USD a year, without CAM, I would have been happy paying.

[@BSFPC]

Completely agree, this is how it felt to me when I received the email opened up Fusion to start converting and saw the 40% off banner spewed across the window. Its a shitty method to practice and comes off to me as a desperation method of some kind or another. As Angus highlighted its always been an inevitability but the way they dropped this onto us is a real kick in the nuts.

[@liamtwentyman7275]

@@BSFPC yeah, I need to find time to convert... Luckily I could get it as a student for a bit longer, but I would rather bite the bullet now, and move to FreeCAD. Especially with my summer break coming up, starting to order parts in for different projects I am yet to begin - I would rather start afresh, and learn a new CAD software solution now, than further down the line when I am even more dependent on fusion.

[@liamtwentyman7275]

@Desktopia likewise! However, I would also expect stability to be better if more of us are paying, not for more features to be added in.

[@BSFPC]

​@@liamtwentyman7275 Again I completely agree with you, I also am jumping ship and headed towards FreeCAD. As you and @Desktopia suggested, if there was a hobby grade license I would be interested but not if I have to pay the same as a professional with the options/abilities that I would never use... I would like to be a fly on the wall at the Autodesk Marketing meeting when they start to realise the mess they are creating. Such a shame.

[@liamtwentyman7275]

@@BSFPC as would I! I wonder what sense a change like this could make for a business to undertake in such a way?

[@yomboprime]

Previously betatesters, now paying customers. (Open Source forever!!!)

[@shadow7037932]

I haven't really found a good Open Source CAD program that has a good UI/UX.

[@MarinusMakesStuff]

@@CrazyMineCuber Whats quirky about Freecad? I'm interested!

[@afurryferret]

Isogen Blender probably has the best UI/UX and at that is much better than many proprietary options but it isn’t parametric unfortunately

[@vladimirseven777]

@@MarinusMakesStuff I stopped trying learning Freecad after trying to enable grid there.

[@MarinusMakesStuff]

@@vladimirseven777 What is the issue with the freecad grid?

[@juschu85]

1:42 "Hi, we noticed you're making ads for us for free. Please give us money."

[@AMidgetWalrus]

Yeah, they couldn't even hit him with a free license. Literally contacted him to personally advertise to him.

[@jeezusjr]

I switched FreeCAD after I got tired talking to the Autodesk Sales Rep a year ago. Felt so much better once all my work was out of the paywall. I exported everything to step, but now thats going away, I'm so so glad I did all this a year ago. FreeCAD does everything I need and is getting better and better.

[@chrisBruner]

I learned a bit of a number of cad systems and settled on freecad as it seemed to have the most possiblities for my actually being able to do something with it 10 years from now. (ie I could see the extortion going to happen with autodesk, and I wasn't having it).

[@IsraelSocial]

I would paid if i know that the software would be mine, but the problem is that we paid for a service software. Thats mean monthly or yearly subscription. Not thanks! Bye bye fusion 360

[@mrjackson2k]

With Autodesk, the software was never "yours", even the initial releases of AutoCAD.

[@octimus2000]

What are you gonna use now? I really want to ditch F360 too

[@grantdeisig1360]

@@octimus2000 what are you using it for? If its 3D printing. Just download 123D design. It's made by autodesk and is almost identical to Fusion360 in most every way. But it's a little tamed down. I still use it today. Its very powerful software for free. But its been discontinued, so you'll have to find the file somewhere online.

[@octimus2000]

@@grantdeisig1360 I need something like F360 or SolidWorks. Basically a CAD with parametric features in mind

[@grantdeisig1360]

@@octimus2000 Then 123D design may work for you. But it will not have the ability to test moving parts with constraints like Fusion360 can. I mean, you can do it in 123D design, but it would have to be done by moving the parts manually yourself. Fusion 360 I believe was just modeled after 123D design, so they are pretty identical in terms of use. But you will lose a few options that only Fusion360 has. There are lots of videos on KZbin if your interested in checking it out.

[@LucasHartmann]

"My proprietary cloud-based software is locking me away from my work. Why did nobody warn me this would happen?" Richard Stalmann has been warning everyone about it since the 1980s...

[@hanelyp1]

Indeed. The story of RMS is very much about control of your own data files, and how the license terms of the software used to create and operate those files matters.

[@dimitrioslykissas7981]

Stalmann is a dork that's locked himself out of the technology he supposedly idolizes. In order to keep true to his ideas he's pretty much unable to so much as browse the web. Ideological purity shluld never get in the way of functioning in the real world.

[@blahdelablah]

@@dimitrioslykissas7981 That's nonsense. Plenty of open source web browsers exist, and it's possible to obtain open source hardware and software for networking. Locking yourself into free/open source software does impose some limits, but it's still possible to function in the real world by doing so.

[@K3nok1]

I had no idea this was happening at all. Thanks for the heads up!

[@StubbyPhillips]

Autodesk used to be such an incredible company. I was a real "fanboy" back in the day. Then they decided that their stockholders were more important than their customers. They lie about it, but 3ds Max development went from a steady stream to a trickle once they switched to subscriptions. Extortion is WAY easier than innovation.

[@stevenull832]

Out of curiosity, how long ago was this? I've been using 'autodesk' sofware for quite awhile, and used a fair range of their software at one time or another. I can't remember a time when their software wasn't bloated or cumbersome, except autocad (version 2003, iirc).

[@NobbyBinks]

3ds Max updates have been insulting over the past few years. This year they are ending maintenance for perpetual licenses so you are forced into subscription if you want to keep updated. My company has decided to tell them to piss off and we are just sticking with 2021. When Vray stops being supported on 2021 we'll look at another package.

[@StubbyPhillips]

You're right @@NobbyBinks , the token updates we get now are a joke. I've been using it since the very first version when it was called "3d Studio" and came on 21 3.5" floppies. For the first decade or so, you got a printed user manual divided into 3 or 4 beefy volumes. It also cane boxed in beautiful packaging to hold the manuals and looked great on a shelf. Autodesk obviously took a lot of pride in their products and valued their customers back then. There were so many new features, tools, UI enhancements and what-not in each new version that I was happy to pay for the upgrade every year or so. With the subscription thing, they don't need to do anything other than sit back and collect the ransom. We get a lot less for a lot more. I'm also still on the "perpetual" plan and will NOT be switching to subscription so this relationship is coming to an end. Kinda sad really.

[@philchia4764]

@@NobbyBinks cos they want you on Maya

[@PaulSpades]

Autodesk was never "incredible". 3DS Max actually got new features for a while, but it was developed only in the years when it was handed to Discreet (an Autoddesk company but somewhat separate). Once Autodesk brought it back home and slapped their name on it, it was dead - all of the dev focus went to Maya and the CAD products. But 3ds was rusty even before that: Nendo, Wings, Rhino and even the old Blender all had superior workflow. On the other hand, you wouldn't have had Inventor and Fusion if max was properly developed.

[@TheSentientCloud]

Things like this is why people resort to piracy.

[@SmithDrewSmith]

The subscription model came about because of piracy. These changes are being made, at least in part, due to people violating the free license option.

[@timd9430]

Exactly. Ignore Captain Obvious @Drew Smith.

[@yakine13]

False, money 💰 is what drive company to this business plan.

[@xhivo97]

This, and region pricing.

[@ThumbDr]

@@SmithDrewSmith how naive can you be, boomer?

[@JoshuaSmith-hr1yx]

10 active documents means it's time for me to find a new program.

[@amadensor]

I use Freecad, mostly because I am a Linux user, and it is available there. Open scad is available within Freecad, so you can combine the two.

[@Yes-rn3rr]

Would you know if you can use free cad on a dell chromebook

[@LordHonkInc]

Yes, this is indeed a tried and true technique. Kinda like how drug dealers operate >_> Listen, I'm fine with people making money, but I'm gonna get rightfully angry if things I've gotten before get held for ransom. And it's sad that instead of giving paying customers _more_ features to entice them to change over, they're taking away features from free users. That's not how you gain customers, that's how you lose them. Previously, this decision would've made me pirate their software. Nowadays, there's too many good alternatives to even worry about that.

[@MyDaoust]

If you are truly a personal use user, none of the lost features will matter.

[@EnuffsEnuff318]

And it's classic, typical geek nerd bedwetter bait and switch......WHILE THEY STEAL ALL YOUR DATA AND KEEP IT FOR THEMSELVES

[@LordHonkInc]

@@MyDaoust Oh I'm sorry for wanting to export step files and not being allowed to anymore Edit: sorry, that sounds harsher than intended... I'm just pissed, y'know

[@octimus2000]

What's really a good alternative?

[@LunaticCharade]

@@octimus2000 onshape

[@paulodpereira]

I hope this will make increase FreeCAD developement, like in KiCAD. I'm a long time Fusion user because of the affordability, I will still continue to use it for now because the restrictions aren't a big deal yet for me. I just started learning FreeCAD and already designed a couple simple parts. The workflow if a bit different and can be frustating at first, but it's a very powerfull package. I'm loving the integrated spreadsheets with parameters, formulas, conditionals to reference the design from and to it.

[@fordrollhaus9086]

They should make a cheaper-than-commercial “Hobby+” license which includes all of the commercial features except the legal ability to use it commercially.

[@robguyatt9602]

Why should they? It's a free market world and "they" can make whatever rules they want to. I sure as hell would not waste my time giving away product it cost me money to produce. Why should any business?

[@muzycznetalenty9959]

@@robguyatt9602 because it has a global network of users? They can have one milion of hobbyist paying 20$ easily.

[@robguyatt9602]

@@muzycznetalenty9959 You miss my point. I was replying to the idea that "They should..." My point is that it is a business's decision what they should or should not do in a free market. Nobody outside of their organisation can dictate what they should do. Notwithstanding regulatory requirements of course.

[@similarwalnut200]

@@robguyatt9602 "Should" = to express what is probable or expected. ​ In this case @Ford Rollhaus is expressing what he is expecting as a consumer. Anyone can *say* what some entity *should* do. Forcing any entity into what they *will* do is another matter all together. All persons will decide what they will or will not do. Corporate or otherwise with or without regulatory requirements, of course.

[@robguyatt9602]

@@similarwalnut200 I agree. That was the point I was making. Individual consumers are mistaken if they think businesses "should" do the things they would like. Only the market can do that and only the business will decide if the market is strong enough to make it profitable.

[@TristanGrimaux]

The most terrifying thing is the unilateral change of rules, and knowing they are the owners of the key of your business. This pay per use model, even when you can pay now and you can think "I'm prepared if they raise the prices" is absolutely exhausting and should never be a cloud in your sky. They are stealing your future, never let anyone do that

[@Stefan_Van_pellicom]

Tristan Grimaux Did you just say you are running a business using the free software ?

[@TristanGrimaux]

@@Stefan_Van_pellicom I'm using Blender for everything I need in 3D, and I'm very happy. And if you think you are safe because you are paying you are dead wrong. You are just looking how they are tightening the free version, but they will soon come after every other customer because they can. If I were a customer of these people I surely be considering other alternatives while I can, because changing a tool like this is not easy and should never be done in a rush as it is a nightmare dealing with due dates and learning curve at the same time.

[@Stefan_Van_pellicom]

Tristan Grimaux This video is about changes that are made in the free version of the software, and I am getting the feeling that lots and lots of people are abusing the free software for commercial purposes. Guess THAT’s why Autodesk is coming down on users and setting restrictions. I have a 3D printer and find it very useful in and around the house, and for tinkering. I am using TinkerCad now, but that’s a bit too basic to my taste, and Autodesk is screwing around with logins etc. there too. So I wanted to transition to Fusion 360, but now I’m not sure anymore ...

[@TristanGrimaux]

​@@Stefan_Van_pellicom I suspect Autodesk is concerned about sales and that is why they are doing it. A free version is a tool, and a percentage of people are always expected to abuse the system, but having a base that knows your product is important. Anyway, every time Autodesk shows its teeth, all customers should be concerned. I am in the same place as you. I come from Sketchup, they did the same, restrict, annoy their customers with policy changes. From there I tried TinkerCad, which is too basic and from there to Blender, and I'm fascinated. You should try it. And Blender gives me an incredible peace of mind: they are not going to go away, the community is huge, and the pace of the development gives you a ton of new improvements every month.

[@TristanGrimaux]

@starshipeleven "this is not going to hurt" gun cocks

[@MetalheadAndNerd]

The only reason to have software like Fusion run in the cloud (without using cloud computing for processing) is to be able to take it away at any time. That this would happen was clear from the beginning, simply because files couldn't be saved locally. There is no reason for that except of extortion. I'll look into Alibre. Paying a one-time fee for continuous use is what I always wanted.

[@MetalheadAndNerd]

@@Dstinct When there is no support it doesn't matter which versions are used.

[@14768]

It doesn't run in the cloud, it runs on your workstation. It stores information in the cloud, but it being cloud based has nothing to do with this. And you absolutely can save and use files locally, always have been able to. This is an issue with the worlds fascination with subscription service model licensing versus perpetual licensing. The fact that F360 is subscription licensed means that the software constantly reaches out to verify your subscription. If it was offered as a perpetual license it would not be able to check continuously for what capabilities you have access to. I don't know why everyone gets the 2 things mixed up but they are distinctly different, and cloud is not your issue here.

[@ProtonOne11]

I don't know what version of Fusion 360 you use, but i was always able to save my files locally as .f3d or .stp files to be imported and worked on later...

[@MetalheadAndNerd]

@@14768 Maybe because Autodesk officialy calls Fusion a cloud based product. Also the option to somehow export files via the Autodesk website has nothing to do with working with local files.

[@kain0m]

@@14768 Perpetual doesn't mean it can't check for the license validity. Cloud, however, means you get the short end of the stick whenever the developer decides to change "the model". And Fusion 360 is definitely "cloud based", you have to jump through a whole set of hoops to get your data out of there - and starting in two weeks, you'll need to pay to be able to get your data out of Fusion 360 into another product.

[@RaymondOreFineArt]

Drug dealer tactics, quite disgusting in my opinion if they always wanted customers to pay then that's what should have happened right from the start.

[@jack_brooks]

They wouldn't have been able to establish their user base, so the product wouldn't exist in it's current state. That said, starting out with a more restrictive personal user license and adding features would have generated goodwill. Giving everything from the beginning and then taking it away destroys it. What Autodesk is doing now is not a good long term strategy.

[@byoung255]

I'm hoping FreeCAD gets more attention (and gets better) now. With PCB design, KiCad has become really good over the last couple years. It got a lot more attention after EAGLE was bought by Autodesk.

[@riz94107]

Thanks... Yours was actually the first video letting me know about the fusion 360 license changes. I'd started using freecad more already, but now I have a schedule for exporting to STEP.

[@seville2k]

I feel like Fusion 360 made a mistake and lost a lot of potential customers with decision. Rather than taking features away from the personal license, they should have just added new, desirable features to the paid subscription.

[@cogspace]

The people who will stop using it because of this are mostly people who were never going to pay for a license anyway. They're not going to lose money on this. They're going to make quite a lot of money on it, in fact, because this is a tried and true tactic. It sucks for us, but it's very clearly a sound financial decision for AutoDesk.

[@KentoCommenT]

I wish adding new features to large software was that easy. Pretty saddening seeing all the user suggestions on forum pages on all the popular software and devs having to shelve it due to always never having enough programmers to implement it.

[@txm100]

@@cogspace Still makes it a dick move.

[@stinkyham9050]

Customers imply they paid. They aren't loosing customers, they are limiting charity.

[@teresashinkansen9402]

They have experience already, its a risky move but they know that if they hit everyone just not hard enough most will complain, some will migrate to alternatives but eventually a significant amount of suckers will bend over and pay for it.

[@bittech1]

Pretty spot on IMO, although the 10 active documents change (and drawing limitations) are a bigger pain in my eyes as it ends up encouraging poor practices. What I like about Fusion is the ability to do both the top-down and bottom-up approaches to CAD. You can use it like Inventor and build assemblies, or you can go the other way around, or even both at the same time. With the 10 document limit it encourages only one approach, the top-down method as it reduces active documents. This method can be a real killer on more complex projects if used exclusively as it can really conflict with the parametric nature of the software. I'm considering doing a video on this next week when some more info is out about some of the changes. Like you I have a paid subscription so the changes don't yet affect me directly, but it sucks thinking about the folks we're trying to get into these hobbies and fields being hampered from the get go when it wasn't a problem before.

[@BSFPC]

^this

[@BeefIngot]

The thing is I bet theyll even start moving the limitations up into the paid tier and add more product segmentation whiloe increasing the price, so eventually even Makers Muse and other paying creators will be affected. This also sucks for me. I'm willing to stomach a certain price for good software, but when its obvious that they will make those sorts of changes, it means I dont know if it will stay reasonably affordable for me, a hobbyist. 300 bucks a year is already asking a lot. Most hobbyists simply dont do enough to justify a price that high yet alone a higher price.

[@johnsinclair4743]

Something I hadn't considered but a really good point! It might have been nice to see a tiered system for hobbyists allowing cheaper monthly subscriptions to remove the 10 document cap without access to FEM / CAM / Large assemblies.

[@peterbosse9059]

You can buy a one year license for 300$. No other CAD program come even close to that price. Yes i know fusion has some limitations compaired to Inventer etc. but for the price its still fantastic.

[@BeefIngot]

@@peterbosse9059 For how long though, and with what features. Also, many cad programs approach that price. What are you talking about.

[@whatfor5]

I can't exactly say I'm surprised. Forcing you to keep your work in the cloud was pretty nakedly a long-term power play. *shrug* Everyone is struggling a bit due to the pandemic, so the timing of this screw as well as the short transition period are both unsurprising and pretty disappointing.

[@AndrewCislak]

Whatfor5 - totally agree. The reasons behind the changes make sense, but this was a terrible time to implement them

[@hoppynaki]

I changed from Fusion 360 to openSCAD about 6 months ago. I am loving openSCAD. So easy to copy and paste code then change a few parameters. If parts of a model are not exactly in the correct position, simply change a dimension in the code.

[@xer0052]

Nice video, some clarification, if a linked file in a document is not unarchived it is still visible in the assembly only read only until you unarchive it. And if you need a step file you can export .ipt files > upload to the grabcad workbench > download step file. But this only works with single component files for as far as I can see. For the rapid feedrate there are also workarounds using the post processor.

[@foxabilo]

I just wrote to them to complain. Makers turn into business owners who then make the decisions on purchasing software, limiting private use is bad business.

[@jack_brooks]

I suspect Autodesk will see in uptick in sales and think that this was the correct move (they will pull in all the users that are on the edge), but I don't think they account for the lose in value in goodwill. Goodwill is a long term strategy. When a competitor/alternative comes along in the future, people will jump ship without reservation because they will remember what their value is to that company. For example, how many here would be sad to see their cable TV provider go out of business?

[@macgyver9134]

Autodesk used to have a team of coders and spent tons of money on anti piracy. The free for private use is fine, but there are MANY MANY people abusing it. They need to make money in order to keep the product going. And considering the price of the competition, fusion is still ahead of the curve. $300>$5,000

[@aserta]

This is an excerpt from article for Revit. An architectural tool. "The president and CEO of Autodesk has responded to criticisms of its Revit software, admitting improvements "didn't progress as quickly" as they should have but rejecting claims it is too expensive."

[@hubermayer7551]

@@jack_brooks well go and look at what autodesk is doing to Autocad revit etc. It shouldn't come as a surprise that you get fucked hard by them

[@jothain]

@@macgyver9134 True, but I think they could make really big money by going to Netflix level subscription model with full feature set. Obviously still keeping that business side bit more costly, but for average Joe's. I'd definitely buy it for something like 10 euros per month.

[@maverickh9]

I never bothered with fusion for this reason. I knew it was only a matter of time. They just want to get you addicted and then snatch it away from you once you're good and hooked.

[@ProtonOne11]

It's not going to be taken away from you. They just restrict the use, mainly because users are/were flooding fusion cloud storage with crap, costing them a lot of infrastructure money. For simple hobby projects, and thats what the free license was intended for anyway, you can still use F360 just as you did before...

[@redsquirrelftw]

@@ProtonOne11 But they still could in the future. Anything cloud based and you are at their mercy. I don't like that kind of instability and uncertainty in my life.

[@clintstlaurent4263]

I'm not hip on the same two sticky points Angus mentioned: • Removal of Export to STEP • 10 active file limit Its hard to follow best practices with assemblies and have a 10 file limit. If they tweak that 10 *project* limit, that would be different as a project can have multiple assemblies and still fill good design practices. And 10 open projects is not an unreasonable statement for people using it in a non-commercial manner. Maybe a few of us need to offer up that suggestion.

[@tonyrichmond9428]

Does a document for a part have to be active once you import the part into another document?

[@wildin13]

Wouldnt that open up unlimited files within each project though? Wouldnt people just exploit this to have individual files all saved within one project? I feel they have done a trade off, people can still use it, just not to the commercial level they were before. At the end of the day, if you want commercial or industrial grade products then you cant realistically expect that for free can you? Can you honestly tell me if you needed a car and someone offered you one for free, but it was restricted to 50mph, the boot was locked shut and you couldn't drive more than 100 miles from your house. Would you accept it, or would you say "no thanks, I'd rather buy one so I can get the full package". Or would you act like everyone on here seems to be acting and complain that you haven't got full access to a completely free car?

[@tonyrichmond9428]

@@wildin13 hey man, I'm just asking because I'm curious. I'm one of those guys designing one off parts for fixing problems around the house and just saw my first project/model with each part created separately and imported a month ago. It was definitely somebody's hobby creation (cheap source 3d printer, released for free). I don't know how fusion works on the inside. Say somebody creates a single part in a file and imports that part into another file to combine it with more stuff. Already way more work than I'm gonna do, lol. But then the first file gets archived. Does the part disappear from the second doc? Or can you just not edit it anymore? What about making copies of it inside the second doc? If it's the first, I think a lot of folks are gonna have to change the way they work, either flow or software, especially the ones building robots and stuff. If it's the second, I think they'll all be fine. Doesn't affect me and my poor design practices either way.

[@wildin13]

@@tonyrichmond9428 sorry, my comment was towards Clint not you. Realistically I'm like yourself, one off odd jobs here and there for 3d printing. Things that I can afford to archive. So I'm confident this won't affect me. I understand people into robotics or like wise will feel the change as best practice is to create individual components separately and import into a larger assembly. This would have to change and all components be in 1 file unfortunately. In regards to imported files being archived, I imagine any file containing linked components will be "corupt" (lack of a better word) until all components are active. But this may be solved by breaking any links to original components, which I know is very bad practice and noone would do it. But it would allow you to copy components between files.

[@tonyrichmond9428]

@@wildin13 Oh I see now. I read Clint's comment, but I didn't fully appreciate it (perhaps understand) what he is suggesting, so I misunderstood you. My bad, chalked up to being in water-too-deep. But maybe you can answer this. What's to stop someone from creating a single document with all the components they need for a project and importing from there? Or is that the point? Each project would need it's own source part, even if the parts were the same, so one couldn't go back to the original and modify all the projects with one click? But hey, even if you don't answer that, you've already taught me something, so thanks.

[@PGGraham]

Seriously, why aren't more people using the open source tools!? FreeCAD, is full featured CAD. It even has FEA! Built right in. You own your own models, you do what you want with them, can export them anyway you want! Blender is the same, if you need more sculpting or more fluid designs. Why is it always the proprietary web tools that get the love?

[@proges]

unfortunately people are attracted to beautiful and shiny things, they do not think about these traps at first, then they become addicted to them and then they get trapped in the spider's web.

[@PGGraham]

@@proges ahh, jewelry and baubles. The bane of mankind...

[@Jynxx_13]

Congrats Angus!!!!!! I got an email from fusion saying they're going to exclude the "no step export" because the hobby community, ie.. you, went in an uproar when this was announced. Well Done ANGUS!!!!!

[@jameslaine2472]

That was a nice, clear-headed reaction to the change. It's nice to see a logical approach, rather than a 'freak-out' reaction video.

[@BeefIngot]

Just because you react neutrally doesn't mean logically. What you are doing here is called an argument to moderation, where you pretend that the opinion in the middle must be the correct opinion. Here, while Im not saying he was completely unreasonable, there were unreasonable things said, like the part about businesses needing money to survive. While sure, yea, on the face of it that obvious cliche is correct, its irrelevant here because this isn't about survival. Autodesk makes money from all their products including Fusion already so this change is wholly for them to optimize their profits. Its a money grab, not out of necessity. Now you can have different opinions on that money grab, absolutely, but pretending that it was out of necessity is not a reasonable opinion to have about it.

[@wayneslape1745]

10 Active document limit doesn't restrict how many projects you can have. Next to each project, there is a tab "Editable" or "Read-only" that you can turn off and on. If you change a Project to "read-only" you will free up another space.

[@devlinlynden]

Thanks, that's really handy. I don't usually jump back between things or at least not more than 10 things and I can't be bothered to off load them so that's super convenient

[@CaptRR]

It wouldn't be so bad if F360 had a hobbyist tier for around $10/month. I really can't justify the 300 dollars a year for a program I only open up once or twice a month, and sometimes go a few months without opening. 25/month is just too much for me, and thats before the fact that autodesk will almost defiantly double it next year.

[@plemli]

You probably didn't write what you meant, but "defiantly" definitely fits.

[@WistrelChianti]

yeh same. Don't use it all the time (CAD is one of several hobbies), so asked for a lower level tier in the survey that had access to fusion teams for one or two friends to work together on something. Ah well... tried.

[@zencow]

Angus (and anyone else)... The announcement says that after October 1, and until January 19th, 2021, it will still be possible to export STEP files from the web interface. That's not magic voodoo. It's literally a click of an icon in Fusion360 to visit that design's webpage (might need to login, just like you do with Fusion360), then find and choose your option to export. Hope this helps someone who needs it!

[@combin8or]

Moment of Inspiration! Hell yes! I wrote the multitouch Mac driver for it in exchange for a license way back when. Michael (main dev/owner) has since maintained and refined it over the years. Pretty sure he also extended multitouch to Windows as well. Anyway, MoI is really pleasant to use and has tons of powerful community made plugins. Nice to see it mentioned, Angus!

[@kinsi55]

And here we can see the reason I will never use a "Cloud Software" if offline alternatives exist.

[@peterhoughton69]

Design spark mechanical is another one to check out

[@SjoerdTheDev]

I've been using FreeCAD for almost as long as I've been 3D printing (Just as a hobby, about 5 years now). Clunky is a pretty good way to put it. It also bugs out quite easily on complex parts (at least in my experience), making me go back and redo a lot of operations just to get something that it computes. If you're willing to work around its various quirks however, it can be really quite powerful.

[@KimboFPV]

I've also had great success with FreeCAD. Yeah, tons of little quirks, but once you figure out work flow and the limitations/bug outs of the software....Now I rarely run into issues .....FreeCAD for all!

[@NigelTolley]

You could be describing F360 there anyway - it frequently breaks in new and exciting ways. My best was when a feature referenced a thing in the future of the timeline, completely breaking the software! They had to patch it.

[@13firebug13]

Another free one is DesignSpark Mechanical, it's what I use and have used it for a while and is pretty easy to use.

[@Powertampa]

Sketchup, while not directly a CAD software works well and has plugins that make it fairly easy to design parts. There is still a free desktop version and you can still get a good discount on the paid version if you find a retailer with older licenses.

[@Topy44]

Summary: "If you do parametric design and don't have a wad of cash... there are no real alternatives." I _really_ hope FreeCAD finally becomes usable, but using it now feels like using a buggy 90s shareware tool trying to imitate real CAD software. It does have potential, but what needs to happen is something like what happened to KiCAD - a large organization, ideally noncommercial, deciding to throw a ton of money at the project to spend real developer time on it and fix it. Or maybe a crowdfunding campaign? Either way, the only way FreeCAD is going to become serious competition for the likes of Fusion360 and SolidWorks is if someone invests a serious amount of time and money. KiCAD went from being a clunky mess to serious competition to Altium and other pro-level EDA software in a very short time once the CERN got involved in 2013. Hey CERN, don't you do mechanical design too? :)

[@nukularpictures]

@engineer99 There are mods for the UI. So it is not the UI that is really bad. It actually works similar to fusion. What sucks is the way assemblies are handled. It is just a nightmare if I am honest.

[@dantahoua]

And there is no cam.... Freepath is way too basic, no 3d path...

[@satibel]

imo one that's somewhat underrated is microsoft 3d builder, though it is mostly useful for quick csg operations and kitbashing, not bigger projects, but if you need something that's a box with holes in it, it's very fast to use.

[@chomp7927]

Really wish they could come out with Targeted builds. It shouldn't be that hard, essentially it's what they are doing right now and just turning on and off a few features based on your license. If they came out with a $100 a year build that was focused on 3d printing as a hobby I'd be all over it. There's a lot of stuff a 3d printer will never use in 360 so lock that part down and open up everything that would pertain to us and let us buy something around $5-9 a month. You could do another targeted build for CNC guys, etc etc. Or better yet just have custom hobby licenses that let you choose hey I do X Y & Z so I want those features unlocked but I don't do A or B so instead of paying $380 a year you can get more in the realm of affordable hobby buyers. There's a reason most of the most successful "services" sold online are in the $89-129 a year range, it's a price point many people can get behind quite easily. All it would be would be creating tiers and checking the box for what's in each tier, which is already exactly how they do it anyways, so it wouldn't change any production overhead on their part.

[@ManIkWeet]

You can use scripting in FreeCAD too btw!

[@NoOne-ef7yu]

I started with solvespace. It's a super simple parametric Cad Software. Easy to learn, but do not expect any but the most basic features.

[@neobaggins3718]

It’s also worth noting that it’s insanely easy to get a free startup license for fusion and SolidWorks as well. The startup licenses are free until you make $100k per year using the programs, so pretty safe for most of us, and if you’re making $100k, you can afford $300/ year in licenses. I plan on selling stuff, but am still in the product development phase and simply linked my empty Etsy page and was granted licenses for both programs (and a ton of addons for SolidWorks) took a few days to hear back, but it was painless.

[@wanglydiaplt]

Thanks for the overview! Actually I was in the process of stepping up from 123D Design to Fusion when this all went down. Even though it's no longer supported and it's hard to find I still prefer 123 to begin my drawings. I've been using Fusion to do assemblies and to do refining as needed. I've got 30 something widgets on Thingiverse now and they were all done with 123. It does have limits tho; i.e. if a part is too large it will choke so it's best to stick with things that are maybe 200mm or less in any axis. I'm 74 and the thought of yet another learning curve is a PITA but I think it's going to be one paid up year of Fusion to finish my one very big project (3 cylinder steam engine) that will require some FEA to get it right. Then I'll head over to Free CAD, assuming everyone else in my gang agrees. It will have to be a group decision so we'll be around to help each other out when we get 'lost' ;-)

[@hkravch]

I’ve literally just got comfortable doing cad in Fusion360. This is so annoying.

[@rkan2]

The Autodesk marketing team says thank you for your feedback!

[@BrightBlueJim]

So learn the lesson: go open source now, since you have to change to something else anyway.

[@hkravch]

@@BrightBlueJim I tried using blender first but UX was horrendous and just plain stupid. I was super interested in their VR editing fork but it stopped working for whatever reason and wasn't capable to do what I wanted. I also did a bunch of openscad but it was much too slow at rendering and just super hard to maintain large structures. OpendScad couldn't handle editing existing stl (really edit them) and would even crash. Parametric design is what I was after so Fusion just fit the bill at the time. Still does. I love those fancy chamfers and fillets. I'm a hobbyist atm but could have eventually gotten to maybe some small etsy type sales so I would have gotten their license eventually. They just shot themselves in the foot imho.

[@BrightBlueJim]

@@hkravch I'm with you 100%. My main objection with Blender was that the shortcut assignments made NO sense. There was no way I could even PRETEND they made sense, and I stopped trying after the second day. Does it have a mechanism for changing these assignments? I don't know, but I would have had to literally change every single assignment. Now: this was about two years ago, and I just read a comment from someone who said that there have been recent improvements to Blender's UI. But I don't have any immediate use for it - for the kind of modeling I do, OpenSCAD is more useful to me, NOT that I would recommend it for everybody. I also use FreeCAD for things OpenSCAD isn't especially good at, although FreeCAD has its own problems. Mainly, it tries to be everything for everybody, so it takes a while to figure out which view you need!

[@TenebrusI07]

@@hkravch Honestly blender is horrendous for maker purposes. The Fusion sketch system and tools are just so much better for making non organic objects. I feel like i would give up designing things altogether if i can't find something quite close to 360. Blender is like a torture device.

[@TomAHawk-py6vj]

No STEP - No Fusion360. I guess I am migrating to FreeCAD, my Part designs are not complicated and at least 60% of Fusions capabilities were never used by me.

[@MrBobWareham]

I have been of the fence with three-d printing for two years and was thinking of getting the ender 3 machine but after listening to you today have decided to pass on 3d as my pocket is small and don't want to traped in something that in the end will just stay in the cupboard due to software cost so thank you for saving my pocket so back to electronics as my hobby

[@Stefan-ck7yx]

Just wanted to chime in about Rhino. I use it professionally as an industrial designer for prototyping XR hardware. If you take the time to learn Grasshopper, the entire workflow can be parametric, while still retaining the powerful surface modelling toolsets Rhino offers.

[@twentycentpiece]

So now we'll have even less people providing STEP files on thingverse etc.

[@Gromic2k]

You can share your Fusion file instead..

[@Interknetz]

Ive yet to find a non stl file on thingiverse. End up having to recreate the whole fucking thing myself if I want to rescale parts of it. People seem to make their things and never upload the source. I don't get it, because how the fuck are you supposed to remix it or whatever? It's really dumb.

[@neo85271]

@@Interknetz That's exactly why I always post my source files to thingiverse. I hate HATE having to edit someone else's stl file, I'd rather just recreate it from scratch.

[@TenebrusI07]

@@neo85271 It's amazing how many somewhat popular and prominent designers don't fucking do this. I had to do this for a remix of the Spannerhands box and it took my like 10x longer than it would have to make it from scratch.

[@MurphyTJ]

They listened to the community and will be keeping STEP format export 👍

[@Xizervexius]

STP export its added back in as of October 1st apparently.

[@BeefIngot]

You have to wonder how long it is until personal licences (the ~300 bucks a year option) starts getting arbitrary limitations too. It basically is on the path to locking out hobbyists.

[@claudetheroux3438]

I gave Solid Edge from Siemens a spin. There is a free community version. It seems to be a very powerful CAD program. It is not cloud based. You download it and install it on your computer. You save your designs on your machine. I did one design while learning it. So far so good. Thanks for the videos.

[@Parayogi]

I learned about CAD (and computers) because my father was working as an independent industrial engineer in the early 90s. A single AutoCAD license used to cost him somewhere above $2000 per year, and my god was it basic! We should be thankful for the tools we have, modern CADs are incredible!

[@patrickbetts5504]

This new model of lockedin subscription based software should be renamed shackleware or hostageware

[@GordonTyler]

They’ve added STEP export back into the free personal license because of the backlash!

[@paulodpereira]

Remember, there is no such thing as the cloud, it’s just someone else’s computer.

[@PaulSpades]

It's mostly your computer with someone else's hard drive, which is exactly the wrong way round (since some of these services essentially keep your data or work hostage).

[@Raddlesnakes000]

I taught CAD class at high school that focused on FreeCAD and a lot of my students still use it today. It reminded me of old versions of Catia

[@Arty00120012]

I've used rhino for many years and love it. It has a 90 day free trial which is great. Also, if you are a student you can buy the full version for € 195 and keep it forever. Thats the full version with updates forever for only € 195.

[@othoapproto9603]

I've been an Autodesk user for 30 years and I'm on record saying Autodesk would pull this move. You should expect that they will start charging for cloud space next.

[@BType13X2]

I personally don't like renting software, for my uses with a CNC router buying Vectric Aspire, although pricey or Carveco (incredibly pricey) is palatable to me because buy once, cry once. That and my CAD/CAM machine is not connected to the internet at all. Having my machine that is running G-Code to my router hooked up to anything that could install an update triggering a timed restart in the middle of a long program and having it stop breaking an expensive milling head/inserts and destroying a workpiece that I could sell for a few grand isn't a smart move. Further, I hate having to have a machine always online to verify its software license, and Fusion 360 is not really intuitive when it comes to saving your files locally. So if you were to have your license lapse and all of your drawings are on their cloud... well... damn right?

[@umbratherios5614]

... exporting to step is removed? ffs, ok, uninstalling -_-

[@MateuszJagocha]

So it was good decision to use Design Spark instead Fusion 360 at start of my 3D Printing journey

[@erikcederb]

Designspark Mechanical have always had these limitations, so well, you did not lose them now by never having them from the start...

[@stevenull832]

@@erikcederb The difference is that designspark is plain and honest from the beginning.

[@saltysteel3996]

I like MatterControl. It's a quick and simple block CAD style. Also has a built in slicer. It's free.

[@leiflindqvist9095]

I have been using fusion 360 since it appeared and was rather limited. For a long time for hobby jobs, later also for a couple of larger paid projects. Now 80% is a hobby but I pay the license and think Fusion gives a lot of value for money. As I see it, the free version continues to be a really good free offer for those who really only need it for private hobby projects. A paid license provides access to exceptional value when compared to Inventor, Solid works, Solid edge and so on, programs that are not financially defensible for most individuals. Fusion 360 has filled a gap in the market in a very good way. And I love the simulation tool!

[@crawlerin]

What about DesignSpark, and Shapr3D on iPads?

[@stevenull832]

Designspark is not a parametric modeller, it's a direct modeller. It has it's problems, but for what it is it's decent. Biggest plus is that it's intuitive, a bit like a more professional sketchup. Biggest downside is that it's very... legacy... and not completely capable. And no linux support. As for ipads... laptops are awkward; mechanical design with a tablet would be a new form of psychological torture.

[@juliodiaz7778]

@@stevenull832 ive used shapr3d on ipad, very intuitive amd easy, but i do come from a no experience background so that might lend itself to ease of use in my case others might have hardwired preference.

[@rougenaxela]

The export restrictions definitely make it a no-go for me to consider Fusion 360 for the 3d printer I just got. Having data locked into one ecosystem is completely unacceptable. In addition, they've demonstrated themselves to be untrustworthy. Even if I could live with the current restrictions, I am not willing to invest time in a tool that may suddenly have capabilities removed.

[@Lozoot2]

Hey guys, how're you enjoying your *free* hamburger? You've given us valuable feedback and formed an incredible community around it, and as a reward, we're going to _take away_ the toppings and condiments that have been free, and leave you with just the meat and the buns! It's still the burger you know and love, just without things that have been there and free from the start.

[@wildin13]

Yes how do you like that free meal? Oh you want it again, okay but you'll have to pay this time. Oh you didnt want to pay? You never wanted to pay? Why are you asking for food then? Why is everyone moaning that they don't have something for free? I've even seen comments from people asking for laws to change to protect them from losing free stuff. How entitled are you to think you deserve something for nothing?

[@Lozoot2]

@@wildin13 it's not that we/I want something for free. It's the fact that they're _taking away_ features that _had been_ free. Don't get me wrong, Fusion is powerful software that absolutely deserves to make money, but hobbyists who aren't necessarily using it as a means of income just get left in the dust. Fusion has been praised for years for being an amazing asset that embraced, listened to, and cared about hobbyists. Doing this just leaves a bad taste in my mouth (pun intended) - if they're okay with removing features now, then who knows what else they'll pull down the line. The price to restore these features is not justifiable for the casual or occasional user.

[@wildin13]

@@Lozoot2 okay, granted the community aspect was very good. But it still remains absolutely usable for your average hobbyist. I'm not going to struggle from this change at all. I can understand some may, those into building robotics maybe? But i challenge you to find a software that, in my opinion, can compete with a number of industrial products at such a comparatively low price. And you only need to pay if you want those features usually associated with commercial use.

[@baumkuchen6543]

Thank you for mentioning the alternatives. Maybe it does not affect people now, but it will in the future. This was the first step to put free users into the corner where they can continue their work but the files are now taken hostages. You can be sure you will feel the next push they make.

[@FBarny]

I use NX from Simens at work and FreeCad at home. FreeCad is a little bit clunky and you need be very careful how things have to be done. Because you don't follow the way, you model could get broken. But If you get used to FreeCad its quite capable.

[@cncmechtech]

Autodesk: So, now that you have a ton of work invested in designing over the last few years, we're going to cripple things in an attempt to extort money from you as a hobbyist. Me: Well, that's not going to happen. Say goodbye to me as a personal user and say goodbye to the 10K plus a year in commercial licensing that I have influence over.

[@BrightBlueJim]

Yeah, no. Autodesk does not believe you ever had the influence to get anybody to pay for their full license. Student licenses still make sense, because engineering and technology students usually go onto get jobs at corporations who DO buy licenses. But "personal" users? Nope, not ever.

[@cncmechtech]

BrightBlueJim No argument that they don’t believe they are alienating anybody. I guess in their minds self-taught draftsmen are fictitious. Funny, because I happen to know several folks that taught themselves without attending a formal school and they absolutely influence paid licensing now. No educational institution affiliation, no student licensing available...

[@BrightBlueJim]

@@cncmechtech It's not that there are not self-taught draftsmen, it's that self-taught draftsmen are not the people who choose what software gets bought by companies. There are two ways this goes: 1) companies see that all of the people at the job fair who are about to graduate or just graduated know Fusion 360, so maybe standardizing on that guarantees they will get qualified applicants, and 2) self-taught applicants have to be proficient in Fusion 360, because that's the standard in industry. So from Autodesk's perspective, the only licenses they need to make free are the ones for conventional students. They are not worried about alienating anybody but people who buy full licenses.

[@cncmechtech]

BrightBlueJim I completely understand that the institutional drafting complex works that way for larger employers. That’s the way it has always worked. What I’m saying may only apply to the area I’m familiar with, but folks around here are not solidified on a single solution. Small to medium shops are a mix that was starting to lean toward F360, but plenty of them have hired and promoted self-taught draftsmen that transitioned out of other careers in recent years and some have shifted to F360 as a result. It’s this smaller market that F360 was originally targeting with the personal/hobby/under $100K licensing. It’s that same group that they are now abandoning with this change. I don’t have any disillusionment that Autodesk cares one bit about capturing this market any longer. I’m sure they made the decision based on not seeing enough perceived license conversions to make the accounting dept. happy, so they killed it. Time will tell if that decision was myopic. Given the manner in which they chose to make the transition and flip the bird to this community, I sure hope they aren’t rewarded for it and whether anyone at Autodesk believes it or not, they are losing commercial licensees over this. It’s not going to be a lot of them up front, maybe it won’t be enough of them to even amount to a rounding error. Time will tell if this costs them anything meaningful in the long run. I hope it does and will continue to shift business away from them wherever I can. I don’t really mind if nether Autodesk or you actually believe that can happen. Am I going to take a large corporation’s licensing away 50-100 seats at a clip? Probably not. Can I influence a bunch of smaller shops with 2-5 seats or those just hiring their first in-house draftsman, I guess we’ll see. I do appreciate the civil debate on the matter.

[@BType13X2]

@@BrightBlueJim I'm a personal user who introduced my branch to fusion 360 around 8 months back. Now that they have made these changes, rather than recommend we redo our corporate license, I am firmly going to recommend Solidworks / Mastercam. Expensive AF but they are at least upfront about it. I was also evangelizing our engineering departments at other facilities into using Fusion360 over Solidworks for some of the features and because I dug that what they gave hobbyists for free. This move does have ripple effects when it comes to those in a position to procure software/influence the purchases of other facilities. We were just in the process of talking software standardization for design globally too.

[@pyromanci2736]

Exported everything, deleted everything (even though i know it's pointless they still have a copy), and uninstalled.

[@DrewHerrema]

The STEP restriction has just been removed.

[@nilb355]

I have been a professional automotive 3d modeller for more then 10 years, when I have the opportunity to use or implement any software outside of Autodesk I jump on it... I strongly advise people to get into Rhino and Grashopper (which is getting subd engine soon) as well as Blender, both those softwares have amazing communities.

[@3DCGdesign]

Started planning my jump off the a-desk ship last year by learning Blender. So very glad I did. Blender has a plug-in called Speedflow and it made me love hard surface mechanical type modeling in Blender and it is accurate and fun. I liked F360, will miss some things about it, but speedflow let’s me do a lot parametrically. Exports to STL and FBX and Collada and more.

[@timd9430]

@Maker's Muse Uh yeahhhhh..... we ALL knew this was coming. : ( But HEY Angus, your hair looks awesome!

[@aajpeter]

Support and contribute your money to open source, way less rent seeking there

[@potatotech7378]

Damn... I didn't know this would happen. I never knew companies did this. Wish someone told me a long time ago.. Just spent a year learning fusion by myself. My first CAD program ever. Good thing I am a student. I should just go to school for my whole life xD

[@squidcaps4308]

Hmm... i was thinking that you were being sarcastic but.. this is a good lesson cause this happens with software, always has happened and always will. This time the clues were it being Autodesk, who famously don't give things out for free and it being cloud based and requiring it to be online. Of course they did it, i knew before i installed it. Don't feel so gutter, surprised it lasted this long and i learned how to model with solids.

[@potatotech7378]

@@squidcaps4308 I mean I would honestly pay for Fusion IF it was not so expensive. But yes good lesson.

[@jimleverington1348]

I've used many different cad programs over my career and I found that once you learn one system you can transition to a different system pretty quick. Recently I had to switch from Solidworks to Inventor and within 3 weeks I was proficient in Inventor.

[@potatotech7378]

@@jimleverington1348 I guess my only best free option really is FreeCAD. Ima get into that :D

[@RockGodZeppelin]

I just started a small biz with a home built cnc router and I have used fusion for a few years now. I have no problem paying fusion for the the price they put up I feel like what they give for free even after the changes really wont effect your average hobbyist.

[@bleepbloopblahp]

Today was due to be my first day learning to use Fusion 360 as a free user. Your video couldn't have come at a better time for me. Thanks for the explanation and information on alternatives.

[@BenEBrady]

Angus, check out DesignSpark Mechanical. It's free and a subset of SpaceClaim

[@TheSuburban15]

Just know that the add-ons to import and export STEP and IGS files costs more than some CAD programs. 778 British pounds is $1005USD

[@BenEBrady]

@@TheSuburban15 I've been using the product for more than 2 years and have never needed to export to anything else but STL

[@stevenull832]

You can import assemblies without paying - you can't edit the existing parts (you can sketch off of them in making a new part). It's not as limiting as you might think. ... but it has it's disadvantages, too.

[@MrJozza65]

Hi Angus, thanks for the clarification and overview of alternatives. When I first dabbled in 3D printing a couple of years back I was using Fusion 360. Then I took a break, and recently got a new printer. As I didn't want to use free software which could end up being throttled, I gave OpenSCAD a try, and took to it like a duck to water. However, as my day job is a software developer, I realise you have to have a certain mindset to get on with it. It's a shame that the free version stays free, but ends up being throttled. That's likely to happen with any software provided by a business. I've seen it with Dropbox and other software, where the free version becomes less and less useful over time, and that's why I prefer to use Open Source software for personal use wherever I can. Personally I would have liked to have seen a "Lite" version of Fusion offered for free, with limitation on functionality/features, but not on the number of things you can create. Then you could choose to upgrade to the full package at any time later. But for me for now, OpenSCAD covers all my needs.

[@danielstewart3507]

The reaction from some "makers" has been hilarious. I love how offended they are that they might have to pay for something. And anyone that is doing more than 3 axis machining definitely has the money to pay for a subscription. Nice review of the events Angus.

[@ManicQuinn]

I'm doing small scale project with a 3d printing service, it's really cheap, but the project involves a lot of complex mechanical design

[@NigelTolley]

@@ManicQuinn the issue is, that is going to be wrecked. You'll get so far, then want to get a part made, and bingo, you can't send the file to anywhere that doesn't use Autodesk suite. Anything beyond a 3D printed STL will now be near impossible.

[@NigelTolley]

I agree that this sucks for some, and also that anyone running a 4 axis CNC with tool changes should damned well be paying for Fusion!

[@UpLateGeek]

Just wanted to leave a note saying thanks, your mention of the archive option fixed the problem which made me dump Fuchsia 360 when they introduced the restrictions. I set all my documents to read-only but I still couldn't create a new project, so I dumped Few sean 360 to concentrate on learning KiCad for my electronics work instead of Eagle. I still had the problem when I finally came back to it, but once I archived everything it allowed me to create a new project. Personally, I have no problems making my terrible 3D models available on a non-commercial basis (if at all). But it's a bit difficult to do the same for electronics projects. At least with KiCad being FOSS there's worry that I'm breaking the conditions of my license if someone else decides to use my files for commercial purposes.

[@DoRu42]

Agreed, we should have seen it coming but there are other ways they could have went to fund their business. ie enticing businesses to purchase site licenses while leaving the personal version feature equivalent. Example: requiring all models to be open source unless purchasing a commercial license. But it was the removal of features as a tool/leverage against personal users which irked me. That and the fact they change file formats at the minor version level(2.9.17 is incompatible with 2.9.19) requiring constant updates. I was an Eagle user so I had a feeling they could pull this stunt. Having a few years of OpenSCAD under my belt I still spent 4 months learning Fusion360 starting in April. I have jumped to FreeCAD and found the only thing I miss is the timeline feature. I've been amazed at how much I'd learned with/in Fusion360 has crossed over to FreeCAD. And the FreeCAD support forum is incredibly active and responsive so I'm happy to donate to support FreeCAD development. One more thing, it would have been nice if you showed why you said OpenSCAD was more like software development 'coding' and even showed the GUI as you did with many of the other CAD options. example of a pipe in OpenSCAD: // making a simple pipe pipeOD=10; // 10mm pipeID=pipeOD-2; //10-2 pipeL=50; //50mm // set FaceNumber($fn) for more detail/segments difference(){ cylinder(r=pipeOD/2, h=pipeL); cylinder(r=pipeID/2, h=pipeL); }

[@masonportice]

Jokes on you, I still use Onshape because my GPU is too bad for Fusion 😢

[@liamtwentyman7275]

The free version?

[@masonportice]

Liam Twentyman yep, it’s not terrible but I wanted to use Fusion 360.

[@lagynas]

Jokes on you, but I use OnShape because it is easiest to use.

[@tripy75]

joke on me, I use onShape because as a hobbyist I don't release closed source design, and no decent 3d modeller runs on Linux (yes, I looked into freecad and no I don't consider it worth)

[@gtradigo]

Same here. Linux user using OnShape for personal use. No regrets so far.

[@medyk3D]

There's also Design Spark Mechanical.

[@portlyoldman]

And it’s really good 😁

[@medyk3D]

@@portlyoldman exactly!

[@grantdeisig1360]

It's been discontinued, but you should still be able to download 123D design some where. It's very similar to Fusion360 because it was also made by auto desk. I started on it and I still use it today. I actually prefer it over Fusion360. It might not be quite as powerful (in some ways) but it's really good for free! There are a few bugs, but not enough to bother me at all. Great software for 3D printing. Not super sure if it will work for laser cutting/etching. But if you can use Fusion360, you can use 123D design. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qHyslJuIjsiprcU This gentlemen has a video talking about it and links to the 32 and 64 bit windows versions of 123D design for those interested.

[@davidneufeld26]

Single sheet drawings is a big hit to my hobbyist workflow for woodworking. It produces plans that I can work from in the shop, plus 1:1 scale paper templates for gluing onto material for freehand cutting with a band saw, jig saw and such.

[@CSHUNT83]

As an autodesk inventor user, I had a curiosity in fusion360 and tried it a few times to see if it would be good for home use. I'm not a fan of cloud based software (that you can't run your own server and must rely on someone else's). I had assumptions that autodesk was using the "free" option to test out new ideas that they could move into pay service and they could always fall back on the fact that it was free, thats why it changes frequently. I also assumed the method of making money from fusion360 was harvesting your data.. that must not have been enough. I did like the .stl to step export and will miss that. freecad works but 360 was a bit better with the output. Thanks for the update. Also as you stated, if you are making money with it, $358 a year is a very good price for 3d modeling software, for hobby use that is tough to take.

[@pen25]

Rs online offers design spark as well.

[@TheSuburban15]

Importing and exporting STEP and IGS files are rather substantial extra charge add-ons

[@thegardenofeatin5965]

I'm a paying customer of F360, this makes me want to find or make another platform.

[@almostrodney]

Well as someone who's looking to be and engineer professionally they have lost my custom, I have so many projects for opensource communities i run that I now will not be able access.

[@cesarignjas]

I don't use fusion 360, I use Alias Autostudio for work, but at home I have the educational license, I'm not student but you don't have to be to apply for one of this licenses, you can learn to teach at your work to your coworkers, that's pretty much what I do because every year Alias have new updates, versions and tools and I have to catch up with those news and bring to my company, that allows me to have any software from Autodesk that I want in a full version at home, if you want to have it for yourself and learn this is a great opportunity, but I definitely not recommend to try using this license for commercial purposes, it is not meant to be used that way.

[@kevfquinn]

OpenSCAD FTW 😎 Good rundown of the market today. Personally, FreeCAD is the one I've been watching but haven't spent the time with yet. For me as a hobbyist with a keen interest in (fully!) open and accessible tools, open source is a key attribute.