Fusion 360 Free version - work arounds

[Muzzer]

If you fancy getting into Solid Edge, there certainly used to be an excellent set of tutorials and exercises. Looks as if it may be this area https://solidedge.siemens.com/en/resources/tutorials/. I did the whole lot over several months and got to try out most of the features in the process.

I really enjoyed using SE. The default "Synchronous Technology" feature is pretty interesting. But if you plan to use CNC (eg users of this forum), it would seem a bit odd (to me) to use one product (eg SE) for CAD and Fusion for CAM. Fusion allows you to switch between the 2 in seconds to make changes to the design when generating toolpaths. I often (usually) do find myself doing this a fair bit. Although it seems to be frowned on for some reason, I also run my control s/w (Centroid in my case) on the same PC, so I can pretty much do everything on one machine. I save the g code from Fusion to the folder my Centroid system looks in for its work files.

[cropwell]

One thing I don't like about Solid Edge is the cost. If you can't easily find a price, it means it is expensive. I am a retired hobbyist with only a State Pension (£150 per week) as pocket money. Solid Edge looks as though it would take half of that. No way Jose!

[Kitwn]

One thing I don't like about Solid Edge is the cost. If you can't easily find a price, it means it is expensive. I am a retired hobbyist with only a State Pension (£150 per week) as pocket money. Solid Edge looks as though it would take half of that. No way Jose!

I haven't looked at the details of what you can do with it but there is a free edition of Solid Edge for the likes of us...

https://www.plm.automation.siemens.c...ware/community

Kit

[cropwell]

Thanks Guys, I have loaded up Solid Edge and will try it out when I can get my brain working...

[Kitwn]

Thanks Guys, I have loaded up Solid Edge and will try it out when I can get my brain working...

I'm quite tempted to look at SE as well, but still have Vcarve and UCCNC as shiny new software to get to grips with so it won't be just yet. There's a limit to how much the old brain can cope with all at once. Please let us know how you get on.

Kit