Changes to Fusion 360 Terms

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

I've just googled Solid edge community and am seeing several results none of which are a website starting 'solid edge'. I see plm.automation, community.sw, team-eng.com etc.

Seems like a lot of opportunity to download viruses – what is the genuine site?

[Raymond AndersonParticipant @raymondanderson34407]

Bazyle, Just type in Solid Edge community edition and that should take you to the official site. I would have created a link but not sure the procedure for this site.

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Bazyle

Link to Solid Edge Community Edition :- **LINK**

https://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/plmapp/education/solid-edge/en_us/free-software/community

You will get a coupe of E-Mails a week from Siemens about CNC, CAD & CAM stuff including links to advice article downloads in PDF format. Advice is all seriously above our pay grade but I reckon around one or two a month make interesting reading.

Clive

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Thanks, that's what got me to Team…. and a 30 day trial.

However I found the right place

**LINK**

Something to do this wet weekend. Just hope it doesn't turn into a restrictive version down the line.

Edited By Bazyle on 24/10/2020 15:55:42

[John RutzenParticipant @johnrutzen76569]

Hi Roderick, Ian, David and Clive. Thank you for those inputs. I don't know, as you say if you are not comfortable with something you won't use it. Maybe I should stick with the drawing board which I am comfortable with. It's the rubbing out I don't like. I have already got a 24 inch monitor as it happens, perhaps I could just get a windows box to go with it cheaply enough. It's the space it all takes up that is the problem.

[John RutzenParticipant @johnrutzen76569]

That' link is helpful Clive and Bazyle. Will Solidedge run on my mac? OSX 10.11.6

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Posted by Bazyle on 24/10/2020 15:55:27:

Something to do this wet weekend. Just hope it doesn't turn into a restrictive version down the line.

To my mind, it's very similar to my use of TurboCAd Bazyle – I used various versions over the years, some free and some purchased but I only upgraded when I needed to (last time for Win10 reasons).

From the Siemens website:

"This free download:

• Is available to any active maker, CAD enthusiast, or design challenge competitor interested in using CAD to bring their ideas to life.
• Is intended for personal use, and may not be used for commercial purposes
• Has a license that does not expire

Note: Files created in this edition cannot be opened in commercial versions of Solid Edge and 2D drawings are watermarked, but your designed parts and assemblies can be 3D printed so you can easily create prototypes. "

So I'm happy to know that I have this SE 2020 version software for as long as I need it. Whether Siemens will make newer versions of SE available in the future, I don't know but their terms for this version seem fair to me.

Btw – I don't get emails etc from Siemens – I probably opted out of that (there is a tick box to do so).

I also don't know what (crippled?) export file types I might ever need (I'm clearly not a CAD expert) but SE 2020CE seems to have everything I need at the moment.

Regards,

IanT

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

John

My MacPro runs OS 10-12-6 High Sierra. Solid Edge seems to be fast and responsive using Virtual Box to run Windows 10. But I've only played with it.

However the MacPro sitting under my desk is pretty powerful. Big old lump tho'.

Mid 2010 version with 2.8 GHz Quad-core Intel Xenon and 24 GB memory.

Graphics card is ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1024 MB memory onboard.

Main drive is 1 terabyte solid state, three more spinning drives adding up to around 3 terabytes in the box too.

I think on a laptop integrated graphics and limited memory may be the most likely issues once a drawing becomes complicated. But how complicated ….

The laptop I'm writing this on is a Mid 2010 MacBook Pro 17", also on 10-12-6. 2.66 GHz Core i7 processor but only 4 GB main memory and 288 MB integrated graphics memory. So lots less oomph. SolidEdge would maybe go OK under BootCamp but the extra load of Virtual Box might be pushing it.

Clive

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Further to IanTs comment I think if you made an isolated computer running just windows 10 and SolidEdge it will be safe until the hardware dies,

If you print your drawings to pdf the content should be safe whatever happens.

I imagine that, within my lifetime at least (was 66 in July), a Virtual Machine system to run a dedicated Windows10 – Solid Edge community edition will always be possible.

Clive

[anthony brooks 3Participant @anthonybrooks3]

I am in a similar boat. However being a cunning lad I do have a solution that may work outside the US. As I am not using CAD for commercial purposes I think it is acceptable. My daughter is at university. She signed up for an educational license with Autodesk – 3 years worth.

[Raymond AndersonParticipant @raymondanderson34407]

The newest commercial version of Solid Edge is now 2021 [ which now includes sub division modelling ] will be a few months until the 2021 community edition / Student edition appears.

[John RutzenParticipant @johnrutzen76569]

Thank you for your kind replies everyone. I appreciate the helpful posts. I don't know what i will decide on yet.

[John RutzenParticipant @johnrutzen76569]

Hi, I have been looking at Creo sketch. This looks like the kind of thing I am after. Has anyone used it for doing model engineering drawings? It looks like you can sketch with the mouse or a pen if the screen is touch sensitive.

[David TaylorParticipant @davidtaylor63402]

Posted by anthony brooks 3 on 24/10/2020 18:51:09:

I am in a similar boat. However being a cunning lad I do have a solution that may work outside the US. As I am not using CAD for commercial purposes I think it is acceptable. My daughter is at university. She signed up for an educational license with Autodesk – 3 years worth.

As I went back to uni this year I tried this. I signed out, restarted F360, and it still has all the limitations. I use my Tormach once every few months so didn't notice anything until today when it refused to write out tool changes or do rapid moves.

There goes my 4th axis altogether and the RapidTurn with any reasonable speed of tool movement.

I guess I can manually edit the G code to try and work around the rapids.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Does it say "educational licence" at top left of screen, if not you are not running as an educational licence, You should be able to get rapids on educational and even the extensions are free.

[David TaylorParticipant @davidtaylor63402]

No, it still says hobby license. I thought if I logged out and back in it might refresh, but no. So the website didn't complain when I applied and says I was upgraded but it doesn't seem to have stuck.

I'll check out that aircraft club offer and see if I can do that. I don't care if I lose all my current work in F360 if I can get a good deal on something else. All my jobs except a safety valve design are one-offs anyway.

I might pay $500AU for F360 if it was a one-off cost for hobby use, but I'm not paying that every year when I only use the machine a few times a year for one-offs.

[David TaylorParticipant @davidtaylor63402]

I had a look at an open source add-in https://github.com/TimPaterson/Fusion360-Batch-Post and regarding the rapids it seems to do a post-post-process – ie loads and analyses the post processed g-code.

I decided to have a look at the Tormach milling post-processor and have added a simple patch to put at least some of the rapid Z moves back. It seems F360 milling toolpaths often start with a rapid X/Y move, followed by two rapid Z moves, then goes into the cutting. So if my patch sees a Z move that goes to above 0 (ie above the stock when the top of stock = 0) it emits a G0 rather than G1.

This restores rapids to the start and end of a toolpath, and also on the way up after a cutting pass when doing multiple depths.

This might not go well for you if you don't have +Z above your stock, or don't get toolpaths similar mine!

function onLinear(_x, _y, _z, feed) {
  // existing post-processor code
  var x = xOutput.format(_x);
  var y = yOutput.format(_y);
  var z = zOutput.format(_z);
  var f = feedOutput.format(feed);

  // use rapids for Z movement to Z > 0 and no X/Y
  if (_z > 0 && ! (x || y)) {
    writeBlock(gMotionModal.format(0), x, y, z, "(Assumed rapid)";
    feedOutput.reset();
    return;
  }

  // existing post-processor code
  if (x || y || z) {
    …

Edited By David Taylor on 01/12/2020 03:53:26

Edited By David Taylor on 01/12/2020 03:54:00

[Jeff DaymanParticipant @jeffdayman43397]

For John Rutzen – you have a private message.

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