FreeCAD 1.1 killed Fusion 360 for me

Fusion 360 logo presumably (tm) Autodesk, used under Fair Use; FreeCAD logo used in compliance with guidelines

Intro

In August 2022, I started looking for an Autodesk Fusion 360 replacement.

It seems that I have found the destination. And it’s not the one I thought realistic.

In the paragraphs below I’ll elaborate a bit on that, and show two mini-projects.

Background

I think I’d soon be celebrating some 10 years with Fusion 360. I started with it when Průša was still modeling all their parts in OpenSCAD¹, and quickly found it better than anything reasonably available to a hobbyist (at that time).

Not to mention that YouTube was even then – and still is – awash in Fusion 360 content; guides, tutorials, live sessions, you name it.

Then, sometime in 2022, I got fed up with Autodesk’s relentless threadmill of nerfing features and began searching for replacements. You can see it in the “moving away” post.

But gosh, why has it taken 4 years?

I’d chalk it up mostly to inertia…

I know all the shortcuts. I actually like the color scheme a lot. The features and the work-style are intuitive (to me).

…and high switching costs.

Soo, what changed? Well, I watched a few Deltahedra videos, and decided to just jump in the water and start swimming².

And a few hours later, I’m actually kinda liking it already.

The goodies!

For example, imagine my surprise when I found out, that there’s an awesome add-on that allows you to use Stream Deck as a macropad:

I only have the baby Stream Deck version, but even then, super useful

Or that there’s an awesome Gridfinity add-on:

Gridfinity add-on, straight in FreeCAD

and a host of other goodies:

• Optics workbench
• Proper export to multiple file formats
• Actually readable source
• Workbench for furniture/architectonic modeling
• Tool for stress analysis (that runs locally)
• etc.

First steps

Thus, after the initial “lemme just click around and see what happens” period, I’ve done my first two mini-projects:

Steffen “Steba Strong” socket strip hanger

We’ve had this Steffen Steba Strong³ socket strip since forever. And we actually hang it by the break-away hanger attachment.

Until recently… when it broke off:

Well, nothing a 3D model couldn’t fix, yes?

A perfect time for FreeCAD, I thought⁴. I decided to re-use the magnet hole:

and a few hours and two revisions later⁵, I ended up with:

which worked like a charm on second try:

And while I don’t think it was exactly hard to model, FreeCAD actually made it reasonably easy:

Steffen socket strip hanger: Model tree, in its entirety.

And I even made good use of the automatic 2D drawing export (the “Page” heading in the tree), to compare the model with reality before squeezing it out of plastic⁶.

Anyway, the source code for the Steffen “Steba Strong” hanger as well as the stl are yours for the price of free, released under CC – BY NC SA license.

And with that, let’s move on to a…

Lid for a tube

Even minier of mini-projects is the second one, which I just threw together in a few minutes.

A lid for a paper tube, that my son decided to make “Rain stick” out of.

Check the result out:

Super easy, barely an inconvenience:

Rain stick: Model tree, in its entirety.

as well as the obligatory STL viewer:

And, the source code for the Rain stick lid as well as the stl are also yours for the price of free, released under CC – BY NC SA license.

Conclusion

As I hinted at the beginning of the post, I think that FreeCAD 1.1 basically killed Fusion 360 for me.

I might have a long and winding road ahead of me before I’m properly productive in FreeCAD (the way I’m in Fusion 360), but I no longer have an excuse not to switch.

It’s way more than good enough. So, what are you waiting for? Watch a few Deltahedra videos, and dive in. ;)

1. First model that I can find on the blog is the vegetable peeler hook from 2017. ↩

2. Yeah, I’m the role model of gradual rollouts. ↩

3. Manufacturer number 207620 (or 207621235, if digitec is to be believed) ↩

4. And omg, was I right, or what? ;) ↩

5. Yes, a few hours, because I’m such a FreeCAD baby. ↩

6. Oh so worth it, since 2D printer can spit out the page in a few seconds; which beats the 10-20 minutes it takes to run it through the Core One to death. ↩