I'm in the same boat as you and make machinery, I use SolidWorks but I stopped getting upgrades in 2015 due to declining business. I find that I can make parts and assemblies very fast in SW but I've not been able to do that well in Fusion 360 and I've not tried very hard as it is so different than SW. If you can save the files as some standard format you can open them in most 3D CAD programs.
JT On 4/5/2017 8:20 AM, John Kasunich wrote: > > On Wed, Apr 5, 2017, at 05:02 AM, andy pugh wrote: >> On 5 April 2017 at 03:29, Ralph Stirling <ralph.stirl...@wallawalla.edu> >> wrote: >>> I just wish there was an open source CAM tool of equal sophistication >>> for CNC work... >> Unfortunately Autodesk have rather taken the wind out of the sails of >> the open-source CAD / CAM projects. >> Fusion 360 (Windows and Mac only) is (at the moment) zero cost to >> hobbyists and offers very good CAD and excellent CAM. >> >> I can't help expecting Autodesk to wait until everyone is committed to >> their offering then "turning evil" and starting to charge. >> > I've been thinking the same thing... I'm trying to decide what to do for my > 3D CAD work. I first got exposed to modern CAD when I was using Inventor > at work. Did some home projects using my work laptop and Inventor license, > love the power of the tool. But my work priorities have changed and I no > longer have access to Inventor. Which really drives home the problems of > these tools. The data is NOT portable. I have a couple years of part-time > hobby work that I simply can't recover. > > Solidworks seems to be the industry standard (something like 60% market > share), but the pricing puts it just as far out of reach as Inventor or Pro-E. > I actually bought a licence for Alibre a couple years ago for almost $1K, but > I very quickly became unhappy with both the tool and the company (especially > the company). Not willing to invest further work into stuff that will be > trapped > in their format. > > That leaves Fusion 360 and FreeCAD. I certainly like the philosophy behind > FreeCAD. Unfortunately, my projects are typically machinery, and I absolutely > need to make assemblies from a mix of standard (screws, bearings, etc) and > custom (housings, shafts, etc) parts. Assemblies seem to be a distant after- > thought for FreeCAD. There have been several attempts at an "assembly > workbench" for FreeCAD, and it looks like every one has died before becoming > usable. I think part of the problem might be that the core of FreeCAD was > designed by people who were thinking only of part design instead of complete > machine design. I haven't had time to actually set up and use FreeCAD, if > anyone can comment on how it handles assemblies I'd like to hear from you. > > Fusion 360 seems like a very nice tool... but like Andy, I don't trust > Autodesk > for a second. My hobby projects move slowly - I need tools that are viable > over > a timescale of a decade or more, (or data format that let me extract my work > and move to another tool). I just don't see that in the 3D world, from > anyone. > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
