I have *just* started working seriously on a chassis design - including spending 3 weeks of evenings ramping myself up on Fusion 360 in order to do static stress analysis. I finally got to the point where I can load up my dummy chassis and measure the torsional stiffness as I'd like some confidence that I meet the Australian Design Rules before starting.
Now I get an email from Autodesk last night which says:
Quote:
Important changes are coming to your Fusion 360 for personal use software that you need to know about.
Effective October 1, 2020, functionality in Fusion 360 for personal use will be limited, and you’ll no longer have access to the following:
Probing, 3 + 2-axis milling (tool orientation), multi-axis milling, rapid moves, automatic tool changes
Multi-sheets, smart templates, output options for drawings (print only).
Download options from public share links
Cloud rendering
Export options including DWG, IGES, SAT, STEP, and DXF (Note: DXF can still be saved via sketch)
Simulation and generative design
Unlimited active and editable Fusion 360 documents (10 doc limit).
Fusion 360 extensions – Generative Design and Manufacturing Extensions
These changes are being made to allow us to scale, align intended usage with the various offerings, support advanced capabilities for Fusion 360 subscribers, and stay true to our guiding principles of democratizing design for everyone.
Fusion 360 for personal use is still free for those of you working on home-based, non-commercial design, manufacturing, and fabrication projects.
For more information about these changes, please refer here and the FAQ.
Most importantly to me, they're taking away Simulation, and they're taking away export to open formats. Having just started learning the damn thing and being that it was only last week that I first started getting valid-looking results, to say that I feel a bit betrayed and bait-and-switched would be an understatement. If you've got any models in Fusion, now is the time to export them to STEP files otherwise you will probably never get them into third-party tooling.
Question time: I now probably need a new FEA tool. What is everyone using to do their chassis stiffness simulations these days? Preferably something free and
open that won't be yanked out from under me while I'm in the middle of my project.
Screenshot of my dummy-test-totally-not-real-and-with-bad-proportions chassis under simulation in Fusion follows...