Fusion 360 - full, free 3D CAD and CAM

Well that's funny. My work laptop now crashes every time I try to....select a tool. I allowed it to install an update today (v1516) and now it is goosed. My other home laptop has the same update installed and still works. Bizarre. That'll teach me to be smug....

Merry

Not sure what that was about. The BIOS change to disable hybrid graphics hadn't stuck. Having changed the settings again, all CAM seems to be working. Tool selection, path generation, simulation etc.

Neither of the other 2 PCs had this problem (W8/64 with Intel HD graphics and W7/64 with Quadro 620), so seems to be a hybrid graphics issue.

Murray

Perhaps an OpenGL vs DirectX (and versions thereof) thing?

As far as I can tell, Fusion 360 uses DirectX (although it seems to work - admittedly very little testing - with my Quadro FX-4800 which is OpenGL).

Edited By Bandersnatch on 01/07/2015 17:18:05

Yes, big brother Inventor also likes to use DirectX, unlike SE and SW and other CAD which use OpenGL. If Solidworks doesn't see a suitably fancy card it refuses to do fancy rendering etc, although it still works (slowly). Doesn't seem to bother Fusion so much.

Apparently the graphics panels in Fusion are rendered using Chrome (not the browser) and this is what gets screwed up with hybrid graphics, causing the black areas.

My works laptop has a graphics card that is more intended for gaming than CAD and it's fine for Fusion and Inventor. Not certain if this was also the cause of the crash when trying to open the tools dialogue but that seems to have been fixed for the moment - may just be a coincidence!

All my issues are now "somehow" resolved. Everything fully working. Both of my milling machines, mill and router perform faultlessly with the Mach3 post generated code.

"Will the bubble burst?"

My Fusion was close to expiry (5 days left) and I just got an email reminder. I was able to click the "remaining days" panel and sign up as an enthusiast / startup and it has activated the trial as an unlimited installation. Just took a couple of clicks and there is no obvious loss of functionality - still does all the proper 3D toolpaths.

At work I've been using Inventor quite a bit recently. I wish it didn't crash so regularly despite having all the latest drivers etc. Never had this problem with Solidworks...

Rod: From normal experience: Probably.

It usually happens that just as I think I've got the hang of the thing, it all goes to rats spectacularly.

Regards,

Richard

Edited By richardandtracy on 15/07/2015 15:49:54

Hi All

I have just downloaded and installed Fusion 360 (Ultimate) the program runs on Macs and Windows. my machine uses windows 7. While it stores files in the cloud and some processing is done in the cloud it is not cloud based much of the processing is done locally, the program is installed on the PC. The installation ran perfectly, I registered it immediately with Autodesk as a hobby user. the one year licence was emailed back immediately.

As long as it is used for hobby interests or by small start-up businesses that turnover less than USD100K (for new projects) it is free. The company states that the one year free licence can be renewed free as long as your circumstances don't change.

Below is a link to a rather long forum thread worth reading. towards the end it covers licencing.

**LINK**

I particularly wanted to see if the program could successfully import an Autocad solid model. Then after importing edit it in Fusion 360 than finally process the file into G code. I could have drawn the part entirely in Fusion but I have many parts already drawn as ACAD solid models, it is important that this feature works. It worked very well. I made a test part with contours and pockets to test out the software. It will import a number of other formats.

After a weekend of testing and learning watching tutorial videos and Blogs I am able to feel my way around the program and was able to do the test below. Its a big program with many features to learn.... much more to do there.

I ran two cutting pass simulations on the test part, first a roughing cut using a flat end mill than a ball end mill for a finishing cut The image above shows the simulation having done the roughing cut and part way through the finishing cut. (There are more images in my Album)

The roughing cut uses "adaptive clearing" to maximise the amount of metal removed in the shortest time.
I chose a linear tool path for the finishing cuts. I let the CAM software do most of the thinking and only filled in the forms and selected a tool. No doubt not the best method to make this part but it is a start. and I got it to run without errors!

At the moment I am working on a converting a small mill to CNC, I cant wait to test this program on metal.

If you are interested in CAD CAM CNC This program will make your day.

Regards
John

Yes, not bad for free! It's a bit clunky in places and lacks stuff like sheet metal but otherwise it's the full deal.

Jon Saunders over on NYC CNC has posted a lot of watchable videos showing how he uses Fusion 360. Gives you an idea how it works. The CAM portion is basically the full 3D version of HSMWorks, which Autocad acquired. There is a 2.5D version of HSMWorks (HSMXpress) for Solidworks that is free too but the difference between 2.5D and full 3D is significant. Alternatives such as Sprutcam will cost you over £1k for similar capabilities.

When you come to making assemblies from parts in F360, you have to convert parts to bodies or is that the other way round. It's pretty confusing but most CAD packages have their annoyances.

I’ve spent the last week trying out Fusion 360. Cloud and privacy issues aside I’m very impressed, and have decided to invest the time learning the package.

Yesterday I was playing with motion simulation, and specifically I was thinking about a cam\rocker arm assembly. I can get the cam to driver the rocker arm, but can’t find any mechanism to simulate a spring to push the rocker arm back – does anyone know if this is possible.

David

Try posting a query on the F360 forum. I've found them to be very active and helpful and if you post when the US is awake (our afternoon / evening), you'll often get a reply within hours. You can set an email alert to notify you when someone posts a reply.

I don't know if you can add gravity in F360 motion studies? That may be a workaround.

Let us know if / how you fix it. Now that you've asked, I'd love to know what the answer is!

Murray

I found the comments about autodesk policy interesting because I've been an intermittent user of their AutoSketch program since DOS days. Software development is limited to OS updates and pricing seems absurdly high.

AS is, of course, just a 2D CAD program and I am tempted to try Fusion. My last PC builds have used Intel integrated graphics as I don't game and I do like the sound of silence. Am I likely to need a separate graphics card and does anyone have a recommendation for a sensibly-priced card that is fan-free?

I saw a comment somewhere to the effect that the main difference between gaming cards and CAD-oriented devices was in the firmware and support, the price difference reflecting the smaller demand for the latter.

I'm hardly a fan of Autodesk's past products. I have to use Inventor at work (don't ask) and previous exposure to various versions of Autocad for mechanical and wiring drawings and Autosketch for wound component specs didn't endear me to them. They became old and fat and complacent in my view.

The Fusion 360 project seems to be a new and well-funded activity, with an active and well-resourced new team. They have clearly taken a bold "strategic" (sorry) view of the market and offer a fairly comprehensive CAD/CAM package at a very compelling price (free for small enterprise, educational and hobby use). This will win them a lot of market share, particularly of the valuable young users (educational, maker space, CNC etc).

If you see how the likes of Solidworks are charging top dollar for the initial purchase of their licenses (£5500) and then pretty much force-selling eye-watering "support" contracts as well (£1500pa), you can see that there is an opportunity for a different approach. This is a similar opportunity to the one Onshape is pursuing ($100/month, no purchase cost). The difference is that Autodesk now own a very capable top end CAM application (HSMWorks) and have chosen to throw that product in for free. This would normally cost thousands of £ for a professional user. Onshape doesn't have that option and instead can only offer (full price) add-ins from approved 3rd parties.

It's clear that some features in F360 will not appear for some months but that's the nature of a development program. However, they have promised to keep it free for the small user and new features are being added all the time.

To answer your last question, I have found it works perfectly well on a standard, low-spec laptop (i3 processor, 4GB, Intel HD5000 graphics) although obviously it is a bit slicker on a proper workstation. I don't think you'd need to bother with anything fancy.

CAD graphics are OpenGL-based, whereas games tend to use DirectX. Having said that, I believe Inventor (for one) is happy with DirectX cards. Cards designed for CAD use (eg the Nvidia Quadro family) seem to be very similar but the drivers (and possibly some aspects of the architecture) seem to be optimised for CAD. The entry level Quadros aren't very expensive - I bought a 2GB K620 model from scan.co.uk for £140 delivered.

Programs like Solidworks will still function with Intel integrated graphics but won't allow the graphics-intensive functions such as photorealistic rendering. These are enabled if a proper graphics card is found.

Murray

Edited By Muzzer on 19/01/2016 12:08:44

Murray,

Seriously interested in whether you have had a play with lathe inside Fusion, both drawing and CAM?

Hi John

Sorry to butt in, but I have used Fusion in Lathe mode with Mach3 (already used it a lot with Milling/LinuxCNC). Only at trial level at the moment, but simple drawing and fairly complex turned shapes from STEP work nicely. No screw cutting yet though .....

Once I worked out that the General Fanuc post processor was compatible with Mach3 I was away.

Works great so far.

Cheers - Will

Muzzer:

Many thanks for your helpful reply.

JS - no, nothing lathe related (yet?). I've used it to model some reasonably complex assemblies (CAD) now but in terms of CAM, my current garageless armchair existence denies me the opportunity to actually make any swarf. It's not a pretty place to be. Managed to get some parts to emerge from the CAM section as g-code and simulate (a virtual air cut??) and my LinuxCNC controller is spinning shafts but without access to an actual machine tool to bolt it to that's as far as I can get for now.

David Cambridge - I seem to have found the answer to your question. You can set a "rest position" for the sliding joint. It will then always try to return to that position. I asked the question on the forum yesterday.

The second video is actually for Inventor, so not much relevance for Fusion users - senior moment! But as I use Inventor at work I'll probably watch it anyway. Sorry for any confusion...

Probably more detail than you wish, but one fairly recent version of DirectX removed the canned material properties and replaced them with user-supplied programs.

OpenGL (Khronos consortium) followed suit, and while desktop systems can use the old "canned" library calls, all mobile devices require the use of programs (called "shaders" for -ahem- shading 3D graphics.

Old-style, each vertex of a triangle (face, facet, whatever you want to call it) was given a colour, and that was interpolated across the face. Now, you write a program that manipulates each pixel, giving you lots of control over the viewed object.

I think that DirectX has had its' day. WebGL is quite tied to OpenGL, which is the HTML5 standard for browser-based graphics, is placed just at a technology level where OpenGL shines and DirectX doesn't. I'd say that my time on the W3C HTML5 committee outlined why WebGL was chosen over competing proposals, but that's one story for the pub, not an on-line forum.

I really enjoy writing shader code (and general compute code) on graphics cards, but that's another story. (just finishing up my Longley Rice massively parallel radio propagation calculations on the graphics processor hopefully today!)

Oh - the Intel on-board graphics - these things were abysmal for shader-based rendering; my "millions of downloads, and was distributed by Apple" graphics code had hard-coded checks for some of these Intel chips and would disable some functionality.

John.

Well I'm certainly not an expert on these matters. Remind me not to mention graphics with you over a beer . Of course, Canada doesn't really have any pubs anyway, so little danger of it coming to pass!

My HP laptop has an AMD graphics card as well as an Intel HD5500(?) and I've learned more about the problems arising when they coexist than I'd hoped to. Seems that even though you may be using the proper graphics card, the graphics is still being controlled by and passed through the Intel thing. Apparently that is thought to be why CAD programs crash every 5-10 minutes on it. I probably won't be getting an HP laptop next time because laptops can't all be as cr4p with CAD as this one.

Merry