Please, Autodesk, don't limit the personal licenses!!

[ellie.def]

It seems that Autodesk is wanting to severely limit the featureset of the personal license of Fusion360.

First of all, Why? Just Why would you do that, Autodesk, one of the biggest reasons Fusion was so popular is because it offered professional level performance and tools (without being too pro either) at a very limited cost, or even free, to anyone that needed it.

Second, while the edu and personal licenses do not allow for commercial use, the companies that use it commercially will have the startup version, and will pay for it, but there are so many reasons people use the personal license non-commercially, with fabrication tools being so accessible to everybody, especially personal users, it's only logical to use fusion on a cnc router at home, or for 3D printing at home, without ever selling anything.

FYI: I have an edu license, so I'm not affected by that change, but for the people that are, it's just unfair.

The personal license is already limited compared to the other licenses, so please, Autodesk, please don't be stupid and leave it as is. If anything, you should even allow collaboration with personal licenses, and if there has to be a price to pay, it should me extremely minimal, like 5 bucks a month, with the full startup price enabling commercial use.

If I only get replies from the autodesk team it's not gonna be a very productive post, so feel free to participate and help the personal license keep its functionalities.

[Anonymous]

Well, yes that was an oversimplification, the main point is that by providing a free version you are soft locking users to your ecosystem in case they go to work somewhere, or even if they dont its better to have a free user that spreads the word then none. Free versions are used by hobbyists or students, and they are not paying 500$/yr.

You are raking money from commercial licensing, while familiarizing and gaining users from free license. I agree that some stuff should not be in free version, like any cloud compute features, but this free license is specifically targeted to force users to upgrade to paid license. The middle ground solution is a hobbyist license like i said for 5-10$.

But maybe that it the plan, they cause outrage by crippling free license way to much, and then everyone will be happy when they give us a hobbyist license, instead of just doing it at the same time which would cause the same outrage.

[fer662]

Isn't Solidworks for 40 bucks a year a better software and cheaper than 90 monthly?

It's a deal breaker for hobbyists to spend the kind of money they are asking for. I doubt most of us could justify more than 10-15 USD a month. Make a hobbyist license for 100 a year and I'll gladly pay for it. I'm going to wait for a few days to see if they figure this out and do it, otherwise I'm going to switch to Solidworks. Honestly the only thing that bothers me from the limitations is the file limit, but i'm not going to invest more time in learning something if the rules are bound to change.

[ritste20]

I understand what you're saying as well. But by your own logic, entire industries have been created by "changing the way stuff is made".

And believe me, I didn't learn g-code at school. I learned it from necessity. Standing in front of a machine that you are responsible to make work without crashing gives you just enough pucker factor to drive you to learn the right way to do things.

I'm not calling you out personally, please don't take this the wrong way, but people take for granted what CAM actually does. It's all single-line operations that perform a specific function. Google has the answers. If you understand a cartesian coordinate system, which I would hope so if you're using a 3D modeling program. The machine doesn't care what sits between points A and B, it just follows orders.

G00 - Rapid Feed

G01 - Linear Feed

G02 - Clockwise Arc

G03 - Counter-clockwise Arc

For a CNC router, plasma table, or mini-mill, that's 90% of the learning you need to comprehend. The rest of the information comes from the model or sketch that you just drew and dimensioned. It's harder to get speeds and feeds correct for the material and cutting tool than it is to program the machine. Again, unless you're into multi-spindle, 5 axis adaptive toolpaths, etc. which is when you pony up for CAM.

[tlumWWPF3]

As an educator, I have to disagree with your comment that you should abandon CAM and learn to write G-Code by hand. The CAM simulator really lowered the barriers to go from an idea in your head to a part in your hand. Imagine if we told people to forget the GUI on your PC and go back and learn Dos or Linux instead. Would some people make the leap?Absolutely, but I would argue that a majority of them would just drop the idea and go do something else. 

[ritste20]

I'm not saying we should abandon it. I'm saying you should understand the tools you are using. Anything else is foolish and dangerous. And manufacturing has been around way longer than CAM. How did our grandfathers run mills and lathes their entire life without a computer attached to it?

I apologize if I wasn't more upfront about that. Learning to walk before you run was the crux of my explanation...

[jimskeet2002]

If you think solidworks costs 40$ per year for the standard vesrion I suggest you go check out the price. Then check out the price for the extra cam software that you need to use with solidworks...

Then when you start crying come back again and tell us about it.

[jimskeet2002]

You can write as much code with hand as you want when all you do is lines and arcs and flat surfaces and holes etc, but I can show you designs that have 3d surfaces that you won't be able to hand code even if I tell you that I will give you 10 million dollars to hand code this part so I can machine it on my machine.

[ritste20]

That may be true and I'd be interested to try... but if you have 10 million dollars to gamble with why worry about $500/year for a sub?

That's 20,000 one year licenses you could give away to the hobbyist community

[Anonymous]

Check out the EAA offer, it's a really good deal.  Free personal license of the student version of the latest SolidWorks variant with membership.  $40 a year to be a member and get it!  🙂  It's not the standard commercial version... but we're not standard commercial users, that's the whole point.  

[HughesTooling]

First, I haven't read all posts and don't have the time too. Read the first couple of pages and no one seems to have address one big reason for the change, people using the hobby license for commercial work.

The first change to the personal licence was because of people abusing the license, maybe the license now makes it more difficult to abuse for business but there are still going to be people using fusion commercially. This doesn't just hit Autodesk but every developer of CAD\CAM and every paying customer using CAD\CAM.

@ellie.def  How would you feel if you were running a business using Inventor or Solidworks with a CAM add on spending several thousand dollars a year on maintenance and losing work to businesses misusing Fusion's "Free" license?

A question for all the people in this thread who think the world owes them a free copy, how does Autodesk stop the abuse of the license. And for the people asking for offline storage, who pays for developing that, the paid version doesn't have it and as a paying customer I don't want autodesk wasting resources on it.

Mark

[kal_joseph.edly]

Same here. We only have a few seats at work, but I convinced management to move away from Solidworks and to F360 two years ago. Having a software package that people could use at work and engage with at home in a personal (for free!) or work capacity was a big driver. I still think F360 is great for work, but these new restrictions are killer for anyone working above a basic level at home. 

[whiskey934]

There has got to be a middle ground somewhere. How about $50-100/year for most of the functionality. No rapiding? I mean, that's just cruel. 

[jimskeet2002]

This is certainly true, not maybe true.. I attach a screenshot of the end of one of the finishing operations on one side of a part that I do. It is a wooden speargun and it is all 3d surface which I modeled using T splines. I certainly do not have 10 million to gamble but I can guarantee you that this is not a gamble. The finishing operation is 135.000 lines of code just for the finishing of one side of the part. There is no way in the world anyone can ever hand code this model, end of story.

Guys it is simple. If you are a hobbyist you can still use the software for free. If you are a hobbyist you can still use cam for free...

Yes cam is limited but if you are a hobbyist you do not actually need multi axis machining, rapid moves (you are a hobbyist, you have all the time in the world to wait for slower moves), automatic toolchanges (if you have an automatic tool change machine you are not a hobbyist) etc....

[tlumWWPF3]

Technology should be in place to lower barriers.

My angle of this is exposing more people to what is possible. I have taught students who are scared to death of a table saw but I let them design something in Fusion and then have them cut it out on a CNC router. They would have never considered this if it was a 1950's style woodshop.

You are correct, people have used a lathe or milling machine for decades without a computer but often those people had to have access to those machines, work as an apprentice and have some type mentor/ master craftsman teach them how to run those machines. With the CAM simulator you can eliminate 50% of the guess work and iterate your design countless times without ever having to step foot in a machine shop. Sure there is still a lot of knowledge going into bits, feeds and speeds and then the whole art of optimization but you can get people a lot closer with Fusion.

My hope is that they reconsider having people pay $60 a month to work on learning a new skill on something like a desktop mill or cnc router. 3D printing has come a long way but there is still a lot of unexplored territory in subtractive hobby manufacturing. Getting more people access to that type of work is something I think is worth looking into.

[whiskey934]

Dude, they're killing simulation in the free version as well. This makes CAM useless for hobbyists, who cares if it's free? 

[Anonymous]

And how do you prevent 30 day trial abuse? Piracy? Even with one paid license you could probably use it by multiple people in offline mode, syncing every 2 weeks. Surely its not by downgrading the experience of legal hobbyist users?

The answer is that if a business is abusing your license, you fine them so hard they are back in the stone age.

I think most here are not saying they are owed a free license, most would gladly pay 5-10$ to keep the current free license features. Its just there is no middle ground, either you are crippled by the free license or have to buy a 500$/yr one. Both are no go for the hobbyists.

I have a feeling some of the people responding here that are fine with this, are just gate keeping their precious software. Because how dare you peasant hobbyist use the same software for free, that i have to pay to use with my multi milion dollar mill. Some of you are probably glad autodesk does not deal with this peasantry anymore.

[jimskeet2002]

What does a hobbyist needs simulation for???

[Anonymous]

To design stronger 3d printed parts? To learn how to design parts better keeping strength in mind? To test materials a part should be made from?

What are you even on about here? Do you see hobbyists as some monkeys only printing small useless toys?

[whiskey934]

Simulating a tool path to make sure it works?

[jimskeet2002]

They didn't say anything about cam simulation being removed... Simulation environment will be removed (static load simulation etc) which you use to simulate the strength and other qualities of your design.