The free cad cam options just don't seem to work for us, Clunky is what comes to mind plus no ability to handle other formats. I do admire the people that can Live in that realm. I have a crew of 10-12 guy's and getting everyone on the same page is tough as they all have opinions. Retro-fitted 4 machines to LinuxCNC and four years later they make parts everyday but there is still a stigma of free And homebrewed that hangs over the controls, especially with new guys. I should mention I just had a Retro-fit of a Deckle Maho DMU 80P, had MS-Tech come in and hang their control on it. It's not Fanuc, Fagor, Heidenhain or ProtoTrak and I am sure it will carry the same stigma. Back to fusion should clarify that I am a job shop and we have to open customer drawings and prints in many different formats. Life may or may not be easier if we were only working on our own files making and controlling every process >From design to manufacture. The other thing, is I need at least three seats of Cad and at least two seats of Cam.
The cost of Fusion at $495 a seat looks pretty good to me balanced against the maintenance fees I am already paying 2 seats of Alibre (for making drawings from Customer Solids) 1 seat of Visual Cam (3D mill work) 3 seats ProgeCad (is a bargain, great Autocad clone in my opinion) no maintenance fees just buy seats. 3 seats of ShopCam (very reasonable and great for turning and 2d milling) Knowing I can save back-ups locally may be the answer. Will I be held hostage? Maybe, but there is the possibility that I can migrate to one system over time. My real needs are the ability to make and open 2D drawings as well as solids and generate trouble free tool paths. Jeff Johnson john...@superiorroll.com Superior Roll & Turning 734-279-1831 One comment. The Fusion 360 files to not "hold you hostage" I routinely same my work in *.STEP file format Fusion can use any of about a half dozen industry standard files formats. And can read and write the native format of it's competitors. DOn't work abut file formats. Fusion is a good tol to use to convert from one file type to another. Plans are in the works to allow Fusion to natively edit competitor's files with no conversion needed Yes, I keep the backup design files on my own computer and I do like to keep the backups in at least two different file formats. I keep my work saved to both Fusiion's format and *.STEP Fusion is about the ONLY reasonably priced (free) option if your product looks like this: Below is from a Fusion tutorial where they show you how to make the yellow plastic shell and grey rubber over-mold and the mechanical parts that turn the motor's rotary motion to back and forth saw motion and also how to make a simulation and animated video of the moving parts. You are NOT going to make a saw like this in FreeCAD or and you are NOT going to hand code the g-code files. Yes you can actually build stuff like this saw in a home shop. What I want is a robot vacuum cleaner that can do stairs all by itself at night. The hard part is no longer the mechanics, It is the motion planning software. [image: sawzall-v19-v13-v6-3500-3500.jpg] On Fri, Mar 22, 2019 at 3:54 PM Lester Caine <les...@lsces.co.uk> wrote: -- Chris Albertson Redondo Beach, California -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: sawzall-v19-v13-v6-3500-3500.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 108324 bytes Desc: not available _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
