CAD Forum

I am considering migrating from Solidworks to Fusion 360, and I am finding little information on this process, and no recent information in my searches. I am hoping someone can help shed some light on the process.

It appears that the only way to rebuild my assembly structures in Fusion is to import all of the parts individually, and then start rebuilding all of the assemblies / sub assemblies.

Fusion will import an entire assembly, with all of the components, but they all exist in a single file. (Not quite the same as a multi-body part, but similar.) You can export these parts out to individual files, but the assembly does not point to these, it still looks at the components inside of its file. This doesn't work for me. Parts and sub-subassemblies are re-used extensively in multiple assemblies.

Am I correct in thinking that the only way to rebuild what I have in SW would be to import all of the parts individually, and then rebuild the assemblies one at a time?

Fusion is basically always operating in Top-Down Assembly modeling. You're going to have to unlearn some of the ways in which you do things in F360 in comparison to SW. Not better or worse, just different. Mates in SW are called Joints in F360. Editing a Part only has a little dot next to the component that's being edited...etc.

There is still much missing that you might be used because you have SW experience that is not available in F360..... yet. Take for instances they just recently added configurations into F360 but cost extra $$ to be able to use it.

You'll never get the history tree that was made in SW imported into F360 it will just be editable geometry that could be RE'ed inside of F360.

In general, when switching from any one 3D software to another, it's best to leave most of what you know about the older software, at the door. Get use to it's paradigm, methodologies, then start to bring it your experience and know how. I will say this,, at least right now, SW sketching system is far superior to F360's in so many ways but at least they're improving what F360 is offering.

The more I look into it, Fusion 360 is lacking features I am not ready to do without. This is after very little research. Just trying to make sure the major functionality is there, before worrying about the minutiae.

The below is based off of cursory research. There may be solutions or work arounds that I haven't discovered.

It appears that they do support assembly based modelling the way I am used to, but my impression is they only added it begrudgingly because us old CAD users wouldn't learn how to do it the "right" way. I've spent the last 25 years where 1 part = 1 body and I'm not willing to change that.

If assemblies work the way I hope they do, my option is to import all of the parts, and then rebuild every assembly using those parts. That would be a significant amount of work. (I make extensive use of assemblies / subassemblies.)

I know I'm going to only import dumb bodies into whatever software I migrate to. Drawings will most likely have to be generated from scratch. I'm OK with that. I will rebuild when and as needed in the new software.

The real deal breaker is the lack of anything resembling PDM. I need to be able to "release" files to production and lock them from being edited. I don't see a simple way to do that.

@SPerman I think you have to purchase their Fusion Manage PLM cloud app.
https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusio ... -extension

@SPerman So just to be clear, I'm not a fanboy of F360 as much as this is just information. I get what you mean about Solidwork's methodology when it comes to Assembly modeling. Basically think of it like multi-body modeling in a Part file.... it's just that in F360 you can then move the individual bodies around as if in an assembly unless it's grounded aka fix in SW. The UI/UX of things in F360 also needs much better tells to help you know which files you're editing. The dot next to the component is not good enough.

There are a lot of extra bells and details that can be purchased but that starts to get the monthly pricing up pretty quickly!!!!

Here is a little bit of background, and why I am specifically looking at Fusion 360.

I was an Eagle CAD user long before they were purchased by Autodesk. My Eagle subscription was converted to a Fusion subscription which I keep current. We have a 2nd subscription for our electrical engineer, and we both do all PCB work in Fusion.

There are times I need to do some analysis that isn't available with my solidworks subscription. It is only once or twice a year, but up until recently I've been doing that work in Mecway. I would prefer to do this work in Solidworks, but that is $12k a year. I can purchase $300 worth of credits on Fusion and they are available for use any time over the next year. (Or purchase 1 month for slightly less.) Mecway was great for the price, but being able to do the analysis in a complete CAD system makes it worth the cost.

We will be expanding in the next year, and the price of Fusion compared to the pricing of Solidworks/PDM is significant.

Getting all of us one the same (single) software has advantages, but at the end of the day my primary job is machine design, and nothing justifies making sacrifices in that area.

For now I think I will wait for Fusion to continue to mature, and Solidworks to continue to degrade. There is no urgency to make a change.