$480 a year to get rapids back for hobbyist?

[russmaguss]

I'm a hobbyist with a shapeoko 3. I rarely use my CNC these days and the last time I fired up 360 it was brought to my attention that rapids are gone unless you pay $40 a month. I generate maybe $200/year income (not profit mind you) with my CNC because all other projects are personal projects or gifts for friends/family. Is there any way to get rapids back? My machine will probably never pay itself off as a hobby. I feel like I wasted so much time learning the ins and outs of this software over the years only to get suckerpunched for $500/year that I can absolutely not justify. Should I just start a bunch of free trials every month or something? LOL

[seth.madore]

The changes to Personal Entitlement are outlined HERE

 I'm sorry to hear that you feel that way. When we set about to take steps to curb abuse while also permitting true hobby users to still use the product, we tried to carve as close as we could to what would actually impact the abusers while still giving hobbyists freedom to explore their creativity. Obviously, there is going to be pain among the hobby users, but there weren't a lot of decent options on the table.

Remove Manufacture environment entirely? Make all data public domain? Gut all the toolpaths down to the most basic (2d contour and pocket)?

[DarthBane55]

My 2 cents (again, sorry), is that when you have a hobby, you don't expect it to somehow pay for itself...  I snowboard, buy the gear for 1500$, get a season pass for 1000$ (every year - double the Fusion cost), have fun with it, never have it get paid for itself.

Someone has kart racing for a hobby, buys kart and tools for 8000$, track membership, etc, never sees a dime back.  Name a hobby, it's usually not cheap, and you don't make money off of it.  But you have fun doing it!  With this optic on the thing, Fusion is dirt cheap in comparison with some other hobbies.  You won't anyways, find an alternative with this functionality anywhere near the price.

(sorry again, didn't want to restart the super long thread already existing on this topic, but the price argument to me is completely invalid, so just wanted to put this point of view in light again).

[turbobug64]

Just go into the post processed code and find the retracts and crank the federate up. The whole thing is a giant G01 code so you can add federate at the end of all the return paths and then make sure you put the cutting federate on the next line though or it will continue to rapid for your cut pass. A pain in the ass but that is what free gets ya.

[seth.madore]

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@turbobug64 wrote:

 Obviously the high level management idiots at Fusion 360 need their bonuses to be MUCH bigger.

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Well there's ignorance for ya...

[turbobug64]

Yea I realized I took it too far with that comment and erased it. Still it would be nice to see a 10 to 15 buck a month membership. I could cancel my planet fitness membership that I never use to a Fusion 360 membership that I may actually use.

[anthony.a.douglas]

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@russmaguss wrote:

I'm a hobbyist with a shapeoko 3. I rarely use my CNC these days and the last time I fired up 360 it was brought to my attention that rapids are gone unless you pay $40 a month. I generate maybe $200/year income (not profit mind you) with my CNC because all other projects are personal projects or gifts for friends/family. Is there any way to get rapids back? My machine will probably never pay itself off as a hobby. I feel like I wasted so much time learning the ins and outs of this software over the years only to get suckerpunched for $500/year that I can absolutely not justify. Should I just start a bunch of free trials every month or something? LOL

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 I sympathize, but we all knew a million miles ahead that this was coming.  And it will only get worse.  The best solution is for the community to get off it's ass and finish a CAM package like the plugins for freecad or PyCAM.  Otherwise we will always have these problems or worse.  Even if you get this problem fixed, there will be an endless train of them.  They have the power and they want your money.

[russmaguss · Accepted solution]

What about limiting it on certain post-processors? For instance, I use shapeoko 3. Why not continue rapids for users with cheaper machines like mine or x-carve, etc and for people with big 4'x8' cnc's or big name machines pay for rapids since they're obviously not being used as a hobby? Heck, I'd even drop $10/month to get back to full access of everything. My cnc cost like $1500 maybe? Apparently 3 yrs of throttling the software is worth that much? This whole "leasing software" vs owning was the worst thing that ever happened in the tech world IMO. I'd prob drop $300 if it meant I could use fusion 360 as is now and have zero support. I do simple projects, I don't need many bells and whistles. I get you can't please everyone, and medium size shops could abuse free software, it just blows that I spent so much time learning something that is now so expensive. 

[daniel_lyall]

Compared to the same thing it costs more than fusion.

[Laurens-3DTechDraw]

Simply put I would just rename a Haas post-processor and be good to go then right?

[russmaguss]

I don't know much about post processors but would it really be that simple? Don't they all have settings that are specific to that machine? Would you be able to take the same gcode for a shapeoko 3 and run it on a big 4x8 laguna? 

[seth.madore]

yep

[DarthBane55]

If you know javascript you can write any post from scratch actually, so it would be pretty hard to enforce that scheme I guess.

[engineguy]

@russmaguss 

I think that you need to be very careful advocating that people should be using "cracked" versions of Fusion 360, anyone doing that would never be able to work "online" again or they would likely be "flagged" in a heartbeat, so no more updates, you would have to be using a computer that never goes online !!

The penalties for such actions are severe, something the Courts really frown upon these days, so if you reckon you can`t afford the price of your Hobby maybe it is time to find a less expensive one, for example getting stuck into that list of jobs around the house that the Lady of the house stuck on the Fridge door, right level with the shelf the beer is on 🙂 🙂 🙂

Just pay up "grin and bear it", isn`t that what DJT is doing 🙂 🙂 🙂 Can`t win `em all 😞 😞 😞

Take all the above in the spirit in which it was written.

Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

Stay Safe

Regards

Rob

[daniel_lyall]

@russmaguss You justify it like this Dear I do not have time to make that for you I would have to get a license then it will be no problem I am a bit short do you have $500 spare, and when you are asking you are looking at something you can make for her.

[CRANDALLPRECISION]

It would cost 10g plus if not on the cloud. Thats what any other software of this caliber will cost. Over 20g as it sits with the power it has as of right now. I own a shop and have spent a lot of money on software. 20k for Worknc and 3g a year for maintenance  or they start shutting off features. Solidworks 5500 for the mid package and 1500 a year. Mastercam was 15g plus 2800 for maintenance. I got a quote for a second seat and it was 18g with lathe and another 5g for a post for my umc750. This is only the 3+2 version of mastercam. I love fusion for the cost vs performance. I bought the manufacture extension for 1 of my seats on sale for 900.00. That is an awesome deal for what it includes. I just can't wait for more power from it and realize it will probably cost more. Autodesk likes money just like the rest of us business's and workers for that matter. If they don't make money they go out of business and we have zero software.

[engele]

All of the options you present here effectively just drive folks to other software. I didn't think that the changes would impact me that severely, but they have been worse than I had expected. I'm mostly using Fusion for the CAM functionality, but there does come a point where paying $500 once is better than the Fusion subscription. At the moment, Im still using Fusion, but with loss of rapids means that with the cheap hobby machines many of us use, it extends the run time enough that something can go wrong and the project is lost. It's significant. I don't feel entitled to Fusion, particularly not fro free, but I also fall into the bucket where the pricing doesn't make any sense for me either. It's a shame.

[engele]

I am hopeful that one of the open source options matures like so much other open source software. We will get there. Those projects tend to take a while to mature and then improve rapidly. I need to go spend some time with PyCAM and see if I can make it work. Either that or just buy Meshcam.

[CRANDALLPRECISION]

Name a even close software in terms of functionality  that you pay 500 once? If your worried about cycle times are you really a "hobbyist" ?

[esdakvsn]

(Necroing, I know. Sorry not sorry.) It's sad to see some people defending Autodesk as if they were employees of the company. Fusion 360 being crippled was something that could be predicted, given Autodesk's historic of doing exactly that. Fortunately, there are other CAD software packages which are much more powerful than Fusion 360 and that can be legally obtained by a fraction of the subscription price, if you search well enough. Let's just say that the letters of their acronym are the same as Star Wars.