Why is F360 so difficult?

[MadManScott]

I've taught myself Photoshop, Gimp, 3d studio max, maya, blender... I've made my own 3d videogames in Unity and Unreal... modeled my own objects for it, textured them, compiled them for android and ios...

but for some reason i cant do anything in fusion 360 but draw boxes and import svg... Is there technical reasons why this software is so impossible?

For example, in any other software if i want to move something, i select the thing i want to move, click the move button/tool/whatever, and i move it.

Not in fusion360.

The move tool doesnt move anything. I've spent hours trying to figure out simply how to move a rectangle and its just not possible. 

I have managed to "twist" things with the move tool. i dont remotely understand how the software thinks i want to do this. Im not using a "twist" tool...

Not to mention this box isnt even centered. I cant figure out how to center it. It would be helpful if i could specify the center in x/y coordinates but i cant find that option.

I have been able to import SVG files, which is the only time i can really move/resize anything. But once i click Okay on that import window, its permanently fixed in that location for all time. I've begun designing my things in inkscape and just importing it to fusion360 so that i can generate basic toolpaths for simple text lettering and things. The CAM side of it is fairly easy... but that doesnt matter much if i cant make anything other than basic lines.

Why are things so difficult in f360? is it some kind of upsell to training classes? I honestly dont understand why i cant just click the move tool, and move something. And its not just moving things. There are a million seemingly simple tasks that i just cant do. No matter how many youtube videos i watch none of it ever works.

Tried the "support and learning" section but i cant access any of that. It tells me to click next. i click next. and its just right back at the main "what would you like to do?" page... I click Start Learning again.... It tells me to  click next... i click next.... back to "what would you like to do?"  hmkay. 

Hell, even trying to manage the saved files is a nightmare. Its impossible to delete anything. What are all these subfolders "master" etc etc for? i dont know.  I have a ****ton of things saved that i would loooove to delete.

Oh, and "G28 Safe Retracts" is a hilarious troll. I zero out x/y/z, retract z a little... hit go.... and ZOOM it rapids the spindle straight down into the piece and tries to rapid the spindle through the work to the beginning point, before retracting and then beginning the proper plunge. WOW!

And im not even talking about rapid'ing the endmill through the material. no, it tries to plunge so deep that my actual spindle would have to penetrate the work. LOL!

The best part of this is its completely hidden toolpath in the previews. It does NOT display this path at all in simulation. Even when i import the resulting gcode into whatever sender software im using, it does NOT show this disaster until im witnessing my machine do it. Thankfully no damage to my spindle or machine, just a broken bit and a destroyed workpiece. But holy! Thats some serious next-level trolling.

Disabled "safe retracts" and now it safely retracts and functions properly. lol. I think whats happening here is when i zero out my Z coordinate, the G28 command is trying to move it to "machine" z0. But, since i just reset my zero axis, this "machine z0" could be DEEEEP into the work piece, further than my machine is even capable of moving.

Avoid G28 retracts at all cost.

WHY?!!??! Has nobody else had this problem? am i missing something wildly obvious for the past 2 months? I dont get it. This software has done nothing but cause waves and waves of frustration and anxiety. I dont think i can deal with this anymore.

[cekuhnen]

while I had already significant CAD experience when I cam to Fusion it took me some years actually to get very good at it.

30 hours is not much 🙂

every object also requires different strategies in how to use tools in Fusion.

[TrippyLighting]

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@cekuhnen wrote:
while I had already significant CAD experience when I cam to Fusion it took me some years actually to get very good at it.

30 hours is not much 🙂

every object also requires different strategies in how to use tools in Fusion.

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Same here. 30 hours is not that much!

[chrisplyler]

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@kb9ydn wrote:

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I could see it being confusing for a total newbie. If you have no prior experience with CAD it may not be obvious that a patch is actually a surface.  There is a LOT of nomenclature to learn.

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Sure. But someone watching a video tutorial is likely to observe that all those Patch/Surface icons are orange, right? And is likely to observe the tutor actually performing some Patch/Surface operations, which with a tiny bit of experimentation ought to reveal that the functionality is the same, right?

I'm not trying to say there isn't a bit of a hurdle to overcome. But, "Impossible?"

[TheCADWhisperer]

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@TrippyLighting wrote:

Same here. 30 hours is not that much!

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I'm pretty sure @TrippyLighting spends 30 hours a day (and that is no joke) in Fusion 360.  🤓

[ssawyerLVXNY]

Not frustrated at all. Surprised at how long it is taking, yes, but frustrated, no. It's a complex program. Working through tutorials is very limiting because it demonstrates things within a specific context, and unless the work I'm doing matches that context exactly, then I'm in the situation of "knowing just enough to be dangerous"! 😊 That's not a criticism of the tutorials, or of the software. It is what it is, and if I want to learn this product, I have to make the investment. As a technical educator, I certainly have some opinions about what does and doesn't work well, but the sheer volume of the resources made available for this product certainly has to balance any minor criticism.

And yes, Peter, perhaps I am over-reacting, but keep in mind that for the novice, the behavior of that particular control varies significantly depending on what you are "grabbing" with it, which was not fully apparent in experimenting with it. Not yet understanding that, I was looking for some documentation to get that "ah-hah!" moment. Also, I have been active on forums where the atmosphere was toxic and hostile, and others where the members are patient with the inexperienced almost to a fault. I'm still trying to figure out how things work around here, so I'm very aware of how users are being "told" to interact with this forum, lest I make myself unwelcome. I interpreted your comment as saying that I was doing it wrong (not investing sufficient time and effort before running to the forum with a question), and if I mis-interpreted your comment, I apologize. And by tagging Phil Eichmiller, you did indeed help me find the resource was looking for, and for which I am grateful.

As always, I will try to do better.

[ssawyerLVXNY]

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@TrippyLighting wrote:

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@cekuhnen wrote:
while I had already significant CAD experience when I cam to Fusion it took me some years actually to get very good at it.

30 hours is not much 🙂

every object also requires different strategies in how to use tools in Fusion.

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Same here. 30 hours is not that much!

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Oh - I agree - 30 hours isn't a lot of time, not with something this complex. Maybe 50 hours of "formal" learning, followed by some months of actually doing actual design work with it, might get me to the point of being comfortable enough that it's the first thing I reach for for design, yet still be a long way from "proficient". As I mentioned before, expecting "intuitive" for anything this powerful and complex is ridiculous.

[kb9ydn]

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@chrisplyler wrote:

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@kb9ydn wrote:

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I could see it being confusing for a total newbie. If you have no prior experience with CAD it may not be obvious that a patch is actually a surface.  There is a LOT of nomenclature to learn.

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Sure. But someone watching a video tutorial is likely to observe that all those Patch/Surface icons are orange, right? And is likely to observe the tutor actually performing some Patch/Surface operations, which with a tiny bit of experimentation ought to reveal that the functionality is the same, right?

I'm not trying to say there isn't a bit of a hurdle to overcome. But, "Impossible?"

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Oh no, it's not impossible.  I would say just confusing to the point of being moderately annoying.

Anyway I think the bottom line here is that Fusion is hard because CAD is hard.  Back in the day when I was learning CAD (Solidworks), I could do useful work with it after only a few hours.  But it took a couple years really before I was truly comfortable with it.  11+ years later I'm pretty decent at it but even now I'm still learning new things.  The learning really never ends.

C|

[StephenCim-001]

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@TheCADWhisperer wrote:

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@TrippyLighting wrote:

Same here. 30 hours is not that much!

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I'm pretty sure @TrippyLighting spends 30 hours a day (and that is no joke) in Fusion 360.  🤓

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I have been using F360 for 2+ years but consider my self  a complete newbie, I find Lars, @TheCADWhisperer Youtube Channel the best online source for learning F360 .   If new users feel they are getting "bashed" here,  would having a "New to F360" Topic area work better?  I've also though a separate Tips/lessons Topic would be helpful ?

I don't post much, mainly because been in Australia by the time I get online most questions have been answered 🙂

But I would be more then happy to help users with really basic questions 🙂

[cekuhnen]

@StephenCim-001 I think onboarding is an issue. There are not enough why and how to guides for beginners.

I also can understand advanced users sometimes getting frustrated when it seems a poster did not do their homework either.

However besides that I am a firm believer in new user / work in progress forum where people could post their experience and questions when working on a design in fusion.

advanced users here also have to understand that yes similar questions will be asked over time.

[chrisplyler]

I've been using F360 a bit over a year now. I've become pretty decent at solid modeling and patch/surface modeling. I haven't gotten much into forms, or T-splines or whatever, or CAM, or simulations. So there are more areas I'm NOT good at than there are areas I'm good at. Still, I'm pretty decent at regular modeling.

And while I know I'm not the best teacher in the world, I do try to help others with an eye towards their comprehension level and a well-explained post.

You know what has taught me the most and made me better the fastest? Hanging out here and helping others. I've never watched the official tutorials. I occasionally searched youtube for specific things that have stumped me. I read the threads that I can't offer a solution to, in order to learn new concepts, and I try to help out in the threads when I do have something to offer, to reinforce what I have learned already. Sometimes working through someone else's problematic model, looking for the mistakes, and thinking about how best to explain the required corrective action, teaches me more than anything.

Plus, it's a way to give back to the forum that gave so much help to me. Occasionally, it is frustrating to help, when somebody just won't listen, or can't understand even simple concepts. And very occasionally, a thread devolves into name calling. But the ratio of good to bad in this form seems to be about 100/1. So it's definitely worth it.

[Anonymous]

Maybe the tutorials are just rubbish.  THIS is how you write a tutorial for a newbie. 

I'm starting to really like this program now but it took a lot of time and effort and could have been so much easier and fun.

Once I started understanding some of the principles and menu commands it started making more sense.  Only tried TinkerCAD previously and this was childs play compared to F360, although obviously much more limited.

The tutorials are particularly bad if starting from scratch as to get a foothold in a subject, one must start to understand the basic precepts.  When the bsics are either poorly or not at all explained, with none of the fundamental steps correlating to the current experience, it IS impossible to get a basic reference  foundation.

If I started explaining clinical medicine by first referring to leeches, you may have an idea of the difficulty!  😁

[ssawyerLVXNY]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Maybe the tutorials are just rubbish.  THIS is how you write a tutorial for a newbie. 

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I think "rubbish" is a bit too strong, but I have to admit that the practice of dropping the student into a very complex project (and the sample sometimes doesn't match up with the tutorial) to teach some of the methods is not optimal. That tutorial you pointed to is exactly the approach that I take in teaching classes. I start with an "orientation" of the workspace and the most commonly used tools (too many to go into in a 6-hour class), then launch into demonstration of creating a completed design from scratch, explaining every technique used along the way, and have the students work along with me so that they get the direct feedback. I leave plenty of time for folks to have trouble, and have at least one assistant who is also familiar with the product to help folks get out of trouble.

Obviously, this isn't the approach to use in tutorials, but my point is that progressing from nothing to some end goal showing all the steps along the way really helps the student to see how everything works together. The "project" should be very simple, and can be selected to demonstrate the key concepts. One of the tutorials I've completed uses a drill-press vise as the example object. I thought that it would make an outstanding tutorial subject as it would obviously provide opportunities to explain the difference between direct and parametric modeling, sketching vs 3D modeling, adding constraints, common features such as holes, threads, chamfers and fillets, using construction lines/planes, joints etc. etc. etc.

A series of tutorials, the later ones being of increasing complexity could leave the preliminary steps as an exercise for the student, giving them a chance to apply skills just learned rather than starting from a partially-completed project. Then the tutorial takes them into new territory, moving the student up the learning curve.

I would very much like to produce a series like that if I get proficient enough. It might not take too long, since this would be for the rank beginner, and I might be to a point that I could pull that off in another year of study and work with the product.

To @chrisplyler's point above, teaching is the absolutely best way to learn. You don't really know a subject until you can teach it! 😊

[Anonymous]

I'm new here but not new to CAD; Solidworks has been my staple since 2002, and I consider myself to be proficient with it, however could never call myself expert.

One thing I can say though is although a previous poster said that a program like CAD can never be intuitive, I do believe that that does not exclude the possibility for things to be simpler. The 'joint' function which replaces the Mates in Solidworks is a good example. You can talk about concepts all you like, but to an engineer, the idea that you have two surfaces that actually are coincident or concentric, and so you select them and tell if what mate type (assuming it hasn't already been selected) is so fundamental in engineering that to come up with a different one that requires extra steps and thought doesn't sound like a forward step. All all mates simple? No. But simple ones are, why complicate it.

However that is compounded by the fact that, again as a previous poster wrote, it depends on context and the parts in question. I have watched 'how to' videos on Joints and the only thing that I have learned is that most of the people who post them know how to use it but don't understand how to impart that knowledge to people who don't get the concept. Their examples need to be progressively structured to make sense. There are some links quoted in this thread that I shall go and view, as they are discussed with positive terms.

Nonetheless, as someone who was designing one of IT tools for the company I work for was told, 'if you have to have a tutorial session to teach people how to use the search function, image what they have to go through to use the more complicated parts - you've failed at the first fence'

Anyway, I will persevere and now I found this forum I hope that my experience will get better and echo the sentiment from one of the posters - I hope to be able to put into the forum at least as much as I get from it.

Cheers

Les

[Anonymous]

I did only say "maybe rubbish"  😉.  Your approach to teaching certainly sounds good.  Just following the steps for a basic goal is very useful at just laying down the basic principles and familiarising some of the basic tools and toolbar menu options. Once I started getting a basic grounding in that, it became easier to experiment with all the various tools and felt like at least I was progressing.  I had to do a lot of googling to complete the basic tutorials provided here as the steps are not explained and are often completely inaccurate due to the new UI.

Anyway, enough bitching, I think this is a really great product.  I doubt I will ever get anywhere near expert or even good at this but I'm sure I will learn enough for my needs and that is good enough for me  👍

[ssawyerLVXNY]

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@Anonymous wrote:

...the only thing that I have learned is that most of the people who post them know how to use it but don't understand how to impart that knowledge to people who don't get the concept.

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Bingo! Mastery of a subject, and being able to teach that subject require two completely independent skill sets. I've taken guitar lessons from some absolutely amazing guitarists who can't figure out how to explain what they do to a student. I was so happy to find an instructor who puts as much energy into figuring out how to teach something (and who is constantly refining his techniques in that regard) as he does in mastering his instrument.

The problem is finding people in which the two things - skills with the tool, and skill in teaching the techniques - intersect! 😊 (I'll note that management/supervision is the same; just because you can do something, doesn't mean you automatically have the skills to manage others doing that thing. Entirely different skill set!!).

Finding people in which those two skills co-exist is not easy, as it's a rare combination.

[ssawyerLVXNY]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Anyway, enough bitching, I think this is a really great product.  I doubt I will ever get anywhere near expert or even good at this but I'm sure I will learn enough for my needs and that is good enough for me  👍

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I know, right? I was just telling my son yesterday (he's a machinist, and might be moving into a position as a mold engineer) that F360 is absolutely jaw-dropping in it's capabilities. I am constantly floored when I learn of yet another amazingly useful capability.

It may take considerable effort over considerable time to get proficient with it, but man, what a reward at the end!!

[mattTB9MB]

Yeah right lol 3 days. I've been using it for a couple weeks and still struggle even watching hours upon hours of tutorials. This is a powerful program but terrible user interface.

[dieselguy65]

i honestly found the user interface the easiest of all the CAD/CAM i tried.
which went the range from bobcad, solidworks, freecad, openscad and half a
dozen others.
30 minutes in front of fusion i had a basic part modeled. the others 3
hours in and i maybe had a circle with a hole if i was lucky.
and other than years ago using 2d autocad very limited time. i had never
done cad.

[Anonymous]

is not intuitive, i also hate it... makes no sense 40 clicks to move something, bunch of windows on top to do something... i import models from other software where i spend 30min and not 30hrs.

i use it because of the cam. 

for modeling there`s a ton of faster options.

i have problems with rhino cam, once i fix that, F360 is gone!

you`re not alone... lots of people dont like it because of the way it works... 

i use it and i still don`t like it at all... its an autodesk product.

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