topic Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version in Fusion Electronics Forum

Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

Anonymous — Sun, 24 May 2020 11:59:37 GMT

The overview page for Fusion 360 for Personal use lists the following restrictions:

But it seems the PCB part is also size and layer restricted? This feels very odd as no such arbitrary restrictions exists in the Rest of Fusion 360. Is this a bug from the Eagle to Fusion transition or is this intentional and that restriction is just missing from that page?
It would be rather disappointing though if Fusion would start making such restrictions to the personal use version. I think it would be hard for Fusion to convince people to use it vs. alternative like KiCad or CircuitMaker.
I always felt that Fusion understood that people often start as hobbyists or students before they grow into commercial use and reflected this in their licensing.

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

RichardHammerl — Mon, 25 May 2020 14:59:36 GMT

Hi @Anonymous

the Fusion Personal license actually has a restriction in its Electronics capabilities.

The limits are a maximum of 2 pages for a schematic and in the PCB a maximum number of 2 layers (Top and Bottom) and a limited board area of 8000 mm^2 (half a Euro card board).
This equals the same limits as it is in the EAGLE Free edition.

Best regards,

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

Anonymous — Mon, 25 May 2020 19:04:14 GMT

Ok, thats rather disappointing. Any plans that will change or will Fusion continue to start restricting features like that in the personal edition?

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

noscere1978 — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 18:59:57 GMT

I'm getting into 3d printing as a hobby, and I've downloaded Fusion 360 free trial (hopefully I can get a student licence as I'm still enrolled with the Open University, although that has to go through verification). Otherwise I'll be stuck with the limited hobbyist licence - which for modelling purposes doesn't seem to affect what I want to do...

However, I've noticed that the software also has PCB/electronics design! This was unexpected, and electronics is something I've been tinkering around with for some time now and having software to design with is something I will definitely be using. My question is, at the risk of bumping an old topic, how limiting is the hobbyist licence? It has been 2 years almost since the original poster asked this question, so I wanted to ask what people's thoughts are now that they've (presumably) had plenty of time to play around and use the limited features.

Is the 2 layers and limited surface area enough for hobbyist purpose? Have the limitations affected your project(s) and how did you get around this (if you even did). What are the (free) alternatives?

Thanks!

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

silvio3105 — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 21:02:13 GMT

2 layer PCB only, 2 schematic sheets and restricted PCB area(I guess 100cm2, not sure)

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

macdarren1 — Sun, 23 Feb 2025 17:01:52 GMT

This is an old post but it appears the 8000mm^2 limit is still in effect for the personal edition.

I personally think maybe making it 10000 mm^2 might be a better limit as it allows hobbyists to take

full advantage of economical board sizes from places like PCBway and common enclosures.

I know I have some KiCad PCBway boards I would like to redo in Fusion360 but I generally used that 100x100 limit as my design standard.

Moving to another size board brings mechanical issues not so much electronic layout limits.

Thanks

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

jorge_garcia — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 18:05:46 GMT

Hi @macdarren1 ,

I hope you're doing well. Thanks for the feedback, I'll pass it up to our product managers.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

Glodigit — Fri, 23 May 2025 02:01:12 GMT

I'd like to add that, due to JLCPCB pricing their 2 and 4-layer boards very similarly, all designs I've ever done in Fusion (Education) have been 4-layer.

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

poen_11-cryptes — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 16:45:16 GMT

I agree not being able to even create a small 40mm * 40mm, 4 layer board is very limiting.
Even for the most basic boards, it is just convenient to have a GND and VCC layer at your disposal,
especially if you are trying to create your very first board and you're not that good at routing like me 😉

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

jorge_garcia — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 19:25:12 GMT

Hello Everyone,

Stay tuned, there are some changes on this front coming in the next release of Fusion.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

silvio3105 — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 20:40:30 GMT

09/25 release?

I read release notes and there is nothing new about restrictions.

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

jorge_garcia — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 22:45:46 GMT

Hi @silvio3105 ,

I just confirmed it and the new limits are in place. So basically, you can do max a 4 layer board with unlimited board size.

If you have the personal version of Fusion, try it out for yourself. I'm not finding the updated web page yet but it is working.

Best Regards,

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

majedmohammad — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 13:46:37 GMT

@macdarren1

I do agree with the 10000mm^2 board too. Most PCB manufacturers have a fixed economic price for PCBs up to around 100x100mm (maybe a little bit more), and if the size is larger in either direction, the PCB price more than doubles.

With the 8000mm^2 restriction, I make the PCB long and thin, but then it becomes more than 100mm horizontally and thin vertically, and I lose the 100x100mm economical price.
I would like to see a change that allows us to do up to 100x100mm PCBs.

EDIT: I wrote this reply after reading @macdarren1 's reply but before reading @jorge_garcia 's reply, and the answer is in @jorge_garcia 's reply.

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

poen_11-cryptes — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 13:44:37 GMT

That's great news I will definitely give it a try for my new PCB,
this might be what I need to migrate from Kicad, so I can keep my PCB and enclosure on the same platform

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

silvio3105 — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 14:13:11 GMT

Schematic limit of two pages still exists?

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

jorge_garcia — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 17:55:16 GMT

Hi everyone,

So I found the official specs, for now and the future refer to the Personal restrictions here

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/personal/compare?_gl=1*1r50utv*_gcl_au*NzE0NzE2MTM4LjE3NTIwODQxNDM.*FPAU*MTMyNDAxMzk2LjE3NTIwODQxNDM.*_ga*OTMzNzg3NTYyLjE3NTE5MTE4NTM.*_ga_NZSJ72N6RX*czE3NTk3NzIyMDUkbzI1JGcxJHQxNzU5NzcyMjMzJGozMiRsMCRoMA..

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

digiphis — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 20:55:13 GMT

Hello George, long time. I hope you're doing great.

Thank you for posting the link to the spec comparison of Personal / Professional.

You may be aware, but if not: note that Gemini search results are outdated and the AI states incorrect limitations like 2 signal layers in PCB layout, even though the 10/2025 document states 4 signal layers. There are several ways (AI will tell you) to force Google re-crawl the url and to give it feedback, but the problem may lie in the formatting of the page (a table).

Best-

Re: Restrictions in the Hobbyist Version

jorge_garcia — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 23:43:27 GMT

Hi @digiphis ,

Nice to hear from you. I've passed that info along to the appropriate team. Thank you for reporting it.

Best Regards,