[ger21]

I signed up for the $300/year for life 4-5 years ago.
Just paid my annual $300, and I don't think I ever even opened Fusion 360 last year...

When you consider that most people pay $50-$100 month for cell phones, Fusion 360 is pretty cheap.

[alienturtle]

well darn. i wish i could have taken advantage of that. I run a hurco bmc30 that i purchased at auction and got running. i just make different odds and ends for myself at home. Sometimes the machine sits for 3 months. Sucks to have to pay for a license and only use fusion 4 or 5 times a year. the hobby license has worked well for me until this change. pretty useless without tool changes : /

[Kenny Duval]

That's my only problem with the subscription model. I'm not running the machine daily to produce revenue. If I were the paying a yearly sub would not bother me.

[rcheli]

Paying monthly is the most expensive option. When I got the 3 year plan I paid it all at once. Don't have to think about it again until 2023

[CL_MotoTech]

I'll probably continue to pay for the yearly subscription.

Somebody should create a share group. I know Fusion won't let multiple instances run (might be able to get away with it if you turn your internet off), but it would be easy enough to get a few people together and just schedule times for use of the software. If three people go in, the cost is $135 a year. Not bad at all.

[Titaniumboy]

Behind Door 1 is the $500 per year subscription. Behind Door 2 is the hobbled free version for hobbyists.

But there is a Door 3 that gets you a full featured version of Fusion 360 free for one year. I just signed up for the Autodesk Educational Access and now I have Fusion 360 until December 9, 2021.

And once signed up for the Autodesk Educational Access, not only do you get access to Fusion 360, but you get access to ALL of the Autodesk software. AutoCAD, Inventor, HSMWorks, and much more. Here is the list of Autodesk software:

https://www.autodesk.com/education/e...eatured&page=1

I am only taking a single course at the local community college and I was eligible. I didn’t even have to send in any school documents to Autodesk. And if this didn’t work out, I would have just piggybacked onto my kids that are in high school and university.

And that single class at the community college happens to be in the Machine Tech department, which enabled me to have a Student License full featured Solidworks 2021 for 18 months or so. Completely no cost to me unless you count the cost of the college class.

The only downside is that having access to Solidworks has led me to do all my projects in SW instead of learning Fusion 360. Another downside is that Solidworks CAM, a denutted version of CAMWorks, truly sucks. No 3D toolpaths, only 2.5 D.

[tonycowan]

just got a tormach 770 and learning fusion...you guys are scaring me or you are cheap. I would hope having 10's of k wrapped up in machine and tooling should be able to make an extra 300$ a year for the cad cam to run it.

You're a couple of months in now Adrenalinearmam. Are you happy with the 770 and how it integrates with the $300-$500 per year Fusion 360 bundle? I'm concerned about the need to also purchase $1600/y "Machining Extension" and $1600/y "Additive Build Extension" extension for my 3D printing.

[MARV]

A paid Fusion 360 subscription may not include additive mfg (I don't need), but does include an extensive selection of 3D cam tools.

[ger21]

I'm concerned about the need to also purchase $1600/y "Machining Extension" and $1600/y "Additive Build Extension" extension for my 3D printing.

The Additive Extensions says it's for 3D printing metal parts.

I'd say that if you really need those two extensions, then you are probably making enough to be able to afford them.
There's plenty of functionality in the base version of Fusion 360 for most users.

If you are just doing standard 3D printing, you just export your Fusion models as an .stl and bring it into your slicer. That's what I do for my 3D printing.

[soofle616]

The machining extension isn't needed imo. As I recall it does add a toolpath for 4th axis stuff that would probably be nice to have but otherwise there isn't much benefit to it that I can see. Whats already available for the cost of a basic subscription will still do multi-axis along with plenty of other toolpath options to allow for anything I've thrown at it so far

[MARV]

I'm confused; the paid for machining extension includes enhanced 2D, extensive 3D capability plus 4th axis work (important to me) right? If its baseline your looking for, then the freebie will probably work. But for me, expecting to do indexed and flow surfacing (amongst other work) with something approximating a pocket knife, just won't cut it. By the way, my annual expense is $340 on special. Difficult to beat.

[ger21]

I don't think any of the Machining Extension features even existed before they they were added to the extension, which is a recent development.
I know 4 axis was never available, as people were asking for 4 axis for over 5 years.

I'll have to look when I get home, but I don't think they removed any of the existing machining options into the Extension. I think they just added new features to it. Base Fusion already had extensive machining options.

Who else has 4 axis machining without paying a fortune for it?

[ihavenofish]

For a little clarity:

Fusion 360 always came with HSMworks, which was integrated over several years. They strip out some of its functions for the free version. your regular $300/$450 subscription gets you this.
The expensive extra extension is delcam powermill integrated, a software package autodesk bought 2 or 3 years ago aimed squarely at 5 axis aerospace. This package was alone more money than most of the peoples hobby mills in this thread COMBINED before adesk acquired it.
Note they have also fully integrated Eagle (pcb design) and the 3d printing extension as ger mentioned is for million dollar DMLS/SLM/EBM type things.

Fusion (as the name implies) is their melting pot of all things engineering, it was never the cheap baby brother to inventor. It will REPLACE inventor when it finally matches all features. Don't be too worried about new parts that cost more money to access, unless you actually want them to make profit.

The only people that get jerked around are the free users, cause adesk is constantly altering the feature set there (for reasons already covered here).

[chrsbrbnk]

quote By the way, my annual expense is $340 on special. Difficult to beat.
Marv where did you see that price? thanks chris

[ihavenofish]

quote By the way, my annual expense is $340 on special. Difficult to beat.
Marv where did you see that price? thanks chris

They are constantly changing the price. We paid the $450 to renew not long ago, then it went back on sale to $300.. now back to 450. early adopters got locked in at 300 for life.

[Bob La Londe]

Onshape still has a free license so long as you don't make any money with it and will run on Linux in a browser. All your files will technically be public but who's going to looking for them?

Lots of "inexpensive" CAM programs around depending on how you define inexpensive. Not many run in Linux so far as I know but I don't follow that market.

Not free, but lifetime (Andy's lifetime anyway) support cheap is CamBam. I know many would consider it a huge step down, but it has also been ported to Linux and there is a 64bit version. I still use it today for 99% of my work, and this is what I do for a living now. I tried several inexpensive CAM systems when I was still just a hobbyist and CB was the first one that actually worked. I spent more money on more expensive systems that were total cludges. CamBam has three major limitations IMO.

1. It doesn't really work directly with .stp files. It converts them to meshes and root geometry when it imports them.
2. It doesn't have any high speed machining strategies (except for one plugin written by a user).
3. It does not have REST machining.

Its not a CAD program, but it does have a fair number of 2D and very limited 3D CAD functions. When paired with the decent size library of user written plugins its go a fair amount of functionality. Its basically a 2.5D CAM program which is all most users really need to produce quality parts. I use it a fair amount for 3D machining with high resolution STL files.

It has three big pluses.

1. It has one of the best group of fellow users who actually help each other on their forums.
2. Its free to try out and the demo period doesn't expire unless you actually use the software. Its 40 executions limited instead of time limited. I used it for months while I was learning to use it and deciding to buy it.
3. Its cheap. The price is low enough for all except the most cash strapped user, and you can install it on multiple machines for a single user.

The only warning I have is that Andy said he might at some point introduce a "pro" version at a higher price than the regular version. Its been a couple years and that has not happened. I like the software well enough I paid for a second license just to show my support even though I have no need for a second license. I'm not the only guy on the CB forums who uses it daily in a professional capacity either.

For real 3D CAD you need to have something else. I personally use ViaCAD, but there is some sort of disconnect happening in the last release or two where things are broken and not getting fixed. Version 9 64 Bit Pro is pretty good, but my version 12 release has some broken features. Still I found it to be the easiest and most intuitive to learn 3D CAD program I tried. I've been using it since version 5. Of course your mileage may vary.

[machinehop5]

...its just software. Do the math copy Post process

[MichaelHenry]

I signed up for the $300/year for life 4-5 years ago.
Just paid my annual $300, and I don't think I ever even opened Fusion 360 last year...

When you consider that most people pay $50-$100 month for cell phones, Fusion 360 is pretty cheap.

And cell phone bills can be trivial compared to what some pay for cable - some plans are $200 per month or more.

[mountaindew]

And cell phone bills can be trivial compared to what some pay for cable - some plans are $200 per month or more.

internet with basic tv is $110 /month here. cheapest net-tv plan they have.
Most people i know spend more in a week going out to dinner . Something you flush the next day.
Cook for yourself and you can afford high end software
If your in business and making money using a product then you keep that product current and or find ones that make you even more money.
Software is just another tool. Your going to spend 30-500k on some tools and run them with free ware or cracked software. I dont no what to say!
The pm forum they hate fusion almost as much as tormach machines. But they have an old south bend lathe section lol this explains it all to me.

And I mentioned above I hope some of the very talented people i see on the net keep doing so by paying for the software.
wow! is all I can say for the work I seen done in free software. And the very reason they started charging for it. wow that's not fair!

From what I see both cad and cam program$ that I pay for have improved more then ever because of the fusion competition.
For me this means better tools to use. All I have to do is focus on learning and using these tools at the wow level!

disclaimer: i have only watched fusion videos, never run the program even once my bad

[Bob La Londe]

disclaimer: i have only watched fusion videos, never run the program even once my bad

I ran it early on and found the CAD to be cludgy for me, but the CAM was exceptional in two areas. It has decent HSM strategies, and it does real REST machining. I would sometimes use it to generate code for certain operations and then import the code into another CAM program. When I saw the way it was going several years ago I dropped it completely.