Fusion 360

I take your point about security, and I am sure Fusion is as careful as the banks. Nevertheless, I do not trust the overall security of the Internet as its attackers now are very highly skilled IT professionals paid to keep ahead of any security precautions. I would not worry, if I ever try Fusion again, if my rough CAD attempts are on the www somewhere, but I am not running a company in sensitive work.

That company concerned was in defence manufacturing, so could not take any risks.

It would make neither commercial nor security sense for any company handling very sensitive information to put the control of any of its administrative and intellectual property outside, beyond its own building and firewall. The way things are going with the Internet, we might not need worry about Foreign Powers snooping on our model-engineering drawings, but in the business world, I foresee future consultants not trying to persuade firms to make their IT people redundant to save a few hundred quid, but advising just the opposite.

Especially when the firm's Intranet handles things like technical reports and design drawings too.

Besides, it may be cheaper but that doesn't necessarily mean "better" anyway.

After being a devout TurboCAD user since the free give-away on a magazine, I've now moved completely to F360.

A few weeks ago I found another good reason for using it - it has a built-in FEA (Finite Element Analysis) tool. I've been designing a special lift for a Remap client and needed to know if it would be strong enough. It seemed a daunting task but, after checking out a couple of YouTube videos, I found it works a treat.

I always thought that FEA was a) very difficult and b) it had an eye watering price. But F360 has it built-in.

Yet another reason to use Fusion 360.

I have posted this several times before but if you are concerned about the cloud 'losing' your design you can select 'Save As' and place the design wherever on your own computer you wish to keep it. Treat it as a backup strategy as although you can work with that file, it won't 'up-version' in line with the copy on the cloud.

An advantage of your design being 'in the cloud' is that you can access it from any of your computers and even your smart-phone - good for showing off your CAD modelling expertise at the club! I do most of my CAD work late at night in the comfort of home, but the next day I can fire up the workshop computer and immediately access any of my projects to work from - on screen. If during the workshop session I identify a needed change I can do that then and there without having to make notes and carry out the changes when back in the house.

The other advantage of cloud storage is collaborative working. As the owner of a project you can invite/allow your colleague/friend etc full access to any specific design or element of it. They can then follow/modify or outright re-design against other aspects that you yourself might do. It is a great way of getting minds together to achieve a model or real world item of tooling and it would be great to see it being used on projects in this forum.