Can't Create a 2D Drawing in Personal Use Version

[gcgraham48]

Complete nubie here so I hope I've found the right place for a question on creating 2D drawings within the personal use version. I was following the video by Lars Christensen LarsLive#84 and trying to generate the same drawings he did from the design in LarsLive#83. I selected Drawing>FromDesign and left the Create Drawing entries alone: Full Assembly, Create New, From Scratch, ASME, mm, A size) and clicked OK.

The Drawing workspace comes up for several seconds, but the content area remains blank. Then it simply closes and the Design workspace comes back up.

I've tried several variations of parameters in the Create dialog, have rebooted Fusion 360, have tried other very simple designs, etc.

I'm sure that I'm overlooking something but was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction.

Thanks!

[hamid.sh.]

Just to be sure, you've first made a 3D solid before hitting Drawing>From Design, right? Would you post your model (export .f3d) or at least a screenshot of it here? 

[gcgraham48]

Yes, I was following the YouTube video from Lars Christensen, LarsLive#84 (https://youtu.be/rh9ZB44ApgM), in which he showed how to create a 2D drawing from the 3D model he created in LarsLive#83 (https://youtu.be/0rwqObrwwDw). I had generated the model (the one from #83) and was trying to print it by following his exact steps in #84. 

When that failed, I tried a couple of other models that I'd created and they all showed the same behavior. 

I don't know if this is related to the 2D printing restrictions for the personal use version or not. Being a nubie, I'm stumbling around a bit in terms of how to find help - so I very much appreciate your reply. I've attached a screenshot of the model. If you'd like me to post the full model let me know and I'll give it a try.

Thanks again!

[laughingcreek]

are bumping up against the max number of active models limitation?

[hamid.sh.]

I think @laughingcreek is right. You have 10 documents open. 

[gcgraham48]

I have 2 editable documents out of 10 allowed.

[hamid.sh.]

A Drawing is a new document. In your screenshot you have 10 documents open, so you can't create one more open document.

[gcgraham48]

I think I'm missing something here - where do you see 10 documents open?

[gcgraham48]

I believe the limitation for personal use versions is that you cannot have more than 10 editable documents, but you can have an unlimited number of read only documents. I have 2 editable documents and 4 read only documents. I believe that the "2 of 10" notation on the right hand side of the title bar (next to the Job Status icon) simply indicates the number of currently editable documents I have (2 out of 10 allowed). Even if I close and reopen Fusion 360, it comes up with a single  empty tab, no design visible, and still says 2 out of 10. When I open several of the documents it, again, still says 2 out of 10.

[hamid.sh.]

My bad. I misread your screenshot. Sorry.

[gcgraham48]

No problem, I just wasn't sure if I was missing something. I appreciate your help!

[gcgraham48]

BTW, here's the model if it's at all useful.

[laughingcreek · Accepted solution]

well, it's not the model. I can make a drawing with it fine. can you make a drawing with other models? have you done all the regular stuff (restarting, rebooting)? what version are you on?

[hamid.sh.]

As far as I can tell from here Drawing should be accessible to Personal license (limited to single sheet and print only). Now because there has been occasions where Drawing environment has failed to launch for some users in the past, it's good if you check you can open any drawing at all. You can access some sample drawings from your Data Panel, Basic Training (though I am not on Personal license and not sure these files are accessible to you, but give it a try):

Can you open the above drawing?

[gcgraham48]

Laughing Creek- Thanks for the reply. I think I've made some progress, though I'm not quite sure why. I thought that I had rebooted both my computer and Fusion, but before replying to you that I had, I decided to do it again just to make sure. I was happy that after doing that, I was able to create a document for the "Coffee Spoon" model that I had posted earlier. I thought "bad on me but all is well now". Just to be sure, I tried creating a drawing for a simple model that I had created on my own. It appeared to be progressing OK, but then I got an error box "Fatal Error. Unhandled Access Violation Reading 0x018c exception at 77D3ACC". Fusion crashed hard, I couldn't remove the window from the screen, it was completely unresponsive, etc. So I powered off the computer, rebooted and tried to open Fusion. It did eventually open, but it took a full several minutes. I'm thinking that maybe it had to redownload software from the server, but don't really know. Anyway, after that I was able to create documents for both models, close, reopen, delete, recreate, close Fusion, reopen, documents are still there, etc. So it would appear that all is well at this point.

For the records, the current version of Fusion in the About Box is 2.0.12164. I'm running the software on a semi-old HP Envy laptop (6 or 7 years old), Windows 10.

So thanks so much for the help, I really appreciate it and it makes a difference. Hopefully all is well now - time will tell for sure. I'm a complete nubie to this but so far I've been really impressed with the product.

Gordon

[gcgraham48]

Hamid - I think things are well now, as I described in my previous post. I wanted to thank you for taking the time to help a nubie out - it is very much appreciated. It's difficult with no previous experience in this area or with this product to figure out how to solve problems, or whether they are even actual problems or just something that I'm not understanding (which is the most typical case for me!). It's also difficult to even know where to get help. So having folks like you and the others that are willing to spend your time and effort to help someone out is really very nice and appreciated. Thanks!

Gordon