Great deal on CAD/CAM

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13 Nov 2014 14:35 #53057 by yoshimitsuspeed
I feel bad for not thinking of posting this here sooner but there is still time.
For the last few months I have been using Fusion360 for most of my CAD and all of my CAM. It has been in heavy development and has been sort of a Beta version and still isn't a full replacement for high end CAD/CAM but it does a lot for a great price and is growing quickly.
On the 15th they are coming out with a new update that breaks Fusion360 into two price points. Standard will be about $300 a year and offeres 2.5 axis CAM, basic drawings and a pretty comprehensive CAD package.
Ultimate will offer full 3D CAM and more features than basic. It will also continue to grow in capability. I think it will be closer to $1200 per year.
Here is where the great deal comes in. If you buy an annual subscription before 11/15/14 you get grandfathered in to the ultimate version for the standard price for as long as you maintain your annual subscription.
IMO the CAM alone is worth a lot more than that. It murders all the semi affordable CAM options I tried before finding it. It is based on HSMworks and it's in a completely different league than pycam, cambam and others. There is no exporting to deal with, no needing to convert to mesh and deal with polygons and all that. You can model a part then make toolpaths and create gcode all in the same interface. Or you can import your part in a ton of different formats including step, iges,stl, most autodesk formats and others, and start making toolpaths.
I was able to find a linuxcnc post processor on the F360 forums without trouble and it has been working great.
There is some discussion right now on possibly making a browser based version that would work on Linux.
I am trying to get them to make a desktop version but that's much more up in the air. Interest from the linux community would help make them see the value in that.

If nothing else download it and play with it for a couple days.
fusion360.autodesk.com/about

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