Fusion 360 For Hobbyist

kvt

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OK, I have not even logged in, in a long time. But now have an updated system, and instead of the pencil and paper (napkin) of drawing something out, I thought I would go get and re do my setup for Fusion 360. Well now I cannot find anything but the student or pay version. Was able to reset my password for the Community forums and stuff but need to set up to do drawings again.
Anyone know if it is still free for hobbyist or is it now pay.
and if it is still free, where do we download the setup from.
 
OK, I have not even logged in, in a long time. But now have an updated system, and instead of the pencil and paper (napkin) of drawing something out, I thought I would go get and re do my setup for Fusion 360. Well now I cannot find anything but the student or pay version. Was able to reset my password for the Community forums and stuff but need to set up to do drawings again.
Anyone know if it is still free for hobbyist or is it now pay.
and if it is still free, where do we download the setup from.
As far as I know, it is still free and the student version is available to hobbyists and is a full version. I will be going to the Tormach open house in a week and Fusion 360 reps. will be putting on a seminar. I will definitely put it on my list of questions.
 
As I remember you just download the pay version. I think the pay/no pay is taken care of during the registration.
 
Thanks, I am trying to instsall now.
 
As an admitted hobbyist that appears to want to make drawings of parts and print them for use at the machine do you actually need all of the functionality of a full parametric 3D solid modeling/CAM package? Do you have machines that will swallow a CAM generated post?

If a hobbyist that lacks a 2 1/2-3 axis machine then I suggest the free SolidWorks 2D Draftsight which is a far smaller download (and is also stand alone) and works extremely well for such purposes, when you reach the point where you need such software as Fusion you will no longer be a hobbyist.
 
For some reason the one time I tried solid works it did not seem to work for me. And I never go the hang of it. I figured I would try the Fusion, I signed up over a year ago and then had a computer crash, never reloaded it and tried it again. I have nothing that will use CAM, and One of the things I was looking at with the Fusion 360 was the ability to build each piece and then assemble it Or that is what I was hoping, Have to learn some for now.
 
Kinda depends on what you want to do. Any 2D cad will make shop drawings for something you have a design for. Solid modeling really helps when you start trying to make complex assemblies that you don't want to have to remake the parts repeatedly. I haven't met many that can conceptualize in their mind and not forget to take something into account. I am working on a dovetail slide assembly and it is nice to move the saddle back and forth and see that it doesn't run into anything. As hobbyists, we can generally afford to have a few 'aw-****' moments in a project, but I do get aggravated when I ruin a special piece of metal I ordered. I find the conversion from 2D to 3D modeling challenging, but It is worth the effort for some of the things I want to make. It also helps in keeping this old fart's brain from atrophying.
 
most of my stuff is normally on napkin, sheet of typing paper, or something like that. But find I want something a little better for a few projects. Just have to figure out how to make them work, I'm still old school and have a drafting kit and T square.
 
most of my stuff is normally on napkin, sheet of typing paper, or something like that. But find I want something a little better for a few projects. Just have to figure out how to make them work, I'm still old school and have a drafting kit and T square.
I am old school as well but have been using CAD since 1992, one of the features of old CAD programs such as DreftSight is that they are dimension based, like manual drafting without the pencil. Simply give a feature a start point and an end point, radius, diameter, arc, Etc. by using text commands, I find Fusion and Solidworks far less intuitive after having done manual drawing for years.
 
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