I looked into this and have the trial version. I'm currently using AlibreCAD and the now discontinued AlibreCAM with 4 axis support. My costs are way more than the $495 Fusion for that and it appears to offer 4 and 5 Axis CAM support. Also PCBs and Schematics for which my renwal costs have now climbed to I think $7000. (And no I'm not renewing for that price).
Either Mecsoft or Alibre, not sure who decided to no longer support AlibreCAM and I can migrate my AlibreCAM license to stand alone Mecsoft VisualCAM that accepts STP files as input. AFAIK The down side of the non-integrated versions are that if you decide you need one more reference line or circle or plane to make the milling easier you need to enter your CAD package and add that change. Save as STP file and then rerun the CAM. And there's the problem. Also that work you put into CAM is now gone. You have to start again. With the combined AlibreCAD/CAM you do lose the surfaces you've used to guide the milling but not the tools and profiles and everything else. So. I guess the question isn't so much as to whether Fusion360 is free but how easy is it to move back and forth between CAD and CAM and local storage of _all_ drawings and files and if you pay their $495 per year do you really get 4 and 5 axis milling operations. And how good is it compared to VisualCAM from MecSoft? John Dammeyer > -----Original Message----- > From: andy pugh [mailto:bodge...@gmail.com] > Sent: March-21-21 2:18 PM > To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) > Subject: Re: [Emc-users] openscad to normal gcode converter? > > On Sun, 21 Mar 2021 at 21:15, Gene Heskett <ghesk...@shentel.net> wrote: > > > But fusion is no longer free. > > It's still fairly free if you don't need 5-axis toolpaths etc. > > https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/personal > > -- > atp > "A motorcycle is a bicycle with a pandemonium attachment and is > designed for the especial use of mechanical geniuses, daredevils and > lunatics." > � George Fitch, Atlanta Constitution Newspaper, 1912 > > > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
