Fusion
Hello
Maybe i am missing something, but it is impossible to built mates in Fusion.
How can we work in an assembly without mates???
Moving parts and Joints it's not it.
Thanks
Dan
@davebYYPCU I'd have to disagree with you on that point. I have used SolidWorks since 1998 and still use it. I also relatively frequently, but less often these days use ZW3D.
I am a big proponent of the joint system in Fusion 360 but there are a number of cases, particularly in machine design, where a couple of simple tangency mates will just work and are less complicated.
I think adding "normal" mates would make Fusion 360 a better and more complete product.
@neil a single use case does not invalidate the entire use of a product. That is just silly!
I have a modeling problem that took a rather innovative approach to model in Fusion 360, but it works and created a very stable model. I was able to create it in Inventor as well. Parametric updates were faster, but the model was more fragile and some parametric changes broke the model
In SolidWorks I was not able to create the model.
The one CAD system that blew all of the others out of the water by a large margin in terms of the modeling effort, parametric nature, and pure speed of parametric updates (10-20 times faster than Fusion 360) was ZW3D.
That does not mean SolidWorks or Inventor are not good CAD systems. It doesn't mean Fusion 360 or ZW3D are better than Solidworks or Inventor 😕
@Hfrossard wrote:
Fusion does a lot of things very well. I really see it as a product of the future.
Maybe Autodesk they might even make it on the browser, so no install would be needed.
Nevertheless, the lack of reliable constraints, drawing capability and others make machine design extremelly unreliable.
Me and my team have been using Invetor for 9 years, but we do wanted to make Fusion work and migrate to it.
At the moment, this is impossible.
I disagree that the joints are unreliable. The joint tool set is just incomplete, which makes certain things very laborious and cumbersome. In my 30 year experience in machine design that is a luxury no one can afford who does this for a living or for profit.
I do agree that I would not recommend Fusion 360 for machine design! Period!
Fusion 360 lacks the ability to manage complexity. Try, for example, to gat a BOM out of Fusion 360 into a format that a buyer can work with. That is where it completely breaks down for me. In the last 10 years I've worked for companies 10 times larger than Autodesk down to 30-40 people. In none of these entities were BOM's managed and handed to purchasing in the form of a PDF.
I've designed manufacturing automation equipment for 3 decades across a large range of manufacturing industries. I still do albeit not at the detail design level. Nowadays I cerate the concepts ... in Fusion 360 and sometimes SolidWorks. I've worked with SW since 1998.
At my current place of employment the smallest project on the shop floor has over 4000 components. A mid sized project we delivered late last year had over 17000 components, and everyone who works in that realm already knows that even that already contains a good bit of supplier "stuff' that is already simplified.
That is stuff you cannot do in Fusion 360.
If you prefer SolidWorks to design OpenBuilds 3D printers then it's a very good software to do that.
If you state that this simple case of wheels on tracks is so much of a hurdle that you cannot effectively design a 3D printer, then I suggest you have not enough seat time with Fusion 360 to participate in this conversation.
@neil I did not mean to be personal!
I personally would not teach machine design using Fusion 360 either for a host of reasons.
High school with a tight budget and to get students interested in CAD? maybe.
College for later professional use ? Nope!
I've worked internationally in my industry and due to the nature of my work I come in contact with an unusually large array of competitors, vendors and customers. I have yet to meet a single instance of "someone" using Fusion 360. It would not serve a student well to learn a tool that they cannot later use in the Industry.
@neil wrote:
... I am convinced that Fusion can easily handle 99% of what I want to do. However if that 1% is essential and impossible (or really hard), I'll never get there. I moved on.
...
Yep, I understand. If you have access to a mature tool that was designed to do this stuff and does it very well, you have no motivation or even any benefit from changing.
@TheCADWhisperer wrote:
@neil wrote:
Not that it's relevant, but I teach machine design using Solidworks. Not a newbie.
It is relevant.
Sheet metal tools lacking - that is at least a week of instruction. (And entire career fields for some.)
No wiring routed systems - that is at least a week of instruction. (And entire career fields for some.)
No piping/tubing routed systems - that is at least a week of instruction. (And entire career fields for some.)
No structural frame generator - that is at least a week of instruction. (And entire career fields for some.)
No Weldments - that is at least a week of instruction. (And entire career fields for some.)
No plastics mold tools (other than analysis) - that is at least a week of instruction. (And entire career fields for some.)
2D Drawing tools lacking...
I am continually finding more (things like no reference dimensions in parameters, poor handling of ellipse...)...
And if you have the determination, perseverance, stubbornness and whatnot to get past all that and have created an assembly and all the drawings for your multi hundred, or thousand part assembly it's time to hand the fruits of your creation in form of BOM to purchasing ... in form of PDF files or prints, because that is all that Fusion 360 offers.
Good luck!
Now, of course you can use OpenBOM, but that isn't free and for integration into an existing IT/Software infrastructure and ERP system that is a NoGo. In the last 10+ years I've not worked for a for-profit organization where BOMs were still handled on a PDF or Paper Level and I've worked for companies as "large" as 35 people.
