Link to Solidworks

[dennis.husell]

So we recently got Fusion 360 to handle Cam, while we use Solidworks for CAD.

When speaking to our Autodesk salesman he boasted about Fusions ability to automatically update toolpaths etc if the file was edited, and when i mentioned that we will not be designing in Fusion since we use SW for that he said that it works for Solidworks too.

So the question is, was he correct or was it just sales talk/misunderstanding?

Can you create a link somehow so that if a file is edited in SW, Fusion automatically notices and updates as if it was edited in Fusion? 

Seeing how Fusion handles all its files with the whole library/cloud thingy I don't really see how it could work, but I figured since the salesman actually said so it's worth a shot to prove myself wrong.

Thank you

[HughesTooling · Accepted solution]

Think you can do this with AnyCAD and desktop connector. For CAM I'd recommend inserting the part into another design and create tool paths, this way updates to the source file don't overwrite the CAM information. One problem you might run into is when Solidworks release a new version it usually takes a couple of months before the translators are updated.

Mark

[dennis.husell]

That looks like it does exactly what I'm looking for, thank you!

[Hardy_RnD]

Hi, I had this same setup - linking ".sldprt" files to a Fusion 360 model so that when the SW model was updated, the model in F360 flagged an update available.   For some reason, today, I get the notification but the model does not update from the new SW model.  Also, the linked part info is missing as well and the item is not used by any other designs.  Any ideas?

thanks

[dennis.husell]

Unfortunately I haven't had the time to set up the linking, so I haven't yet tried if it works as described but I found some youtube videos showing that it should.

I have gotten the same update flag too lately, now that I think about it I believe it shows up on all imported SW files, but im not able to actually update the file.

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable in here can help you figure it out.