Upgrade from F360 to Solidworks and Mastercam

[T_Dubs]

Hello,

I just started learing CAD/CAM a few months ago and of course started with Fusion 360 because it was free. Well, the free version has really annoying limitations so I upgraded to the full version pretty quickly. I like it pretty well, it was quick to learn and pretty intuitive once I figured out the basics.

Annoying hiccup again, I want to use the "steep and shallow" toolpath and it requires a paid add-on. Ok, I get it, I'll pay to play, no heartburn with it. Well, I go to purchase it and I can only purchase for 30 days at a time. WTF.

Question: I saw a promo from Titan saying Solidworks and Mastercam will be offered at a discount later this month. You can get both for a couple hundo. Are they better than F360? Are they as easy to learn? Are their CAM strategies better/worse?

Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks!!

 

[g-coder05]

MCam may be at a discount but it wont be in the fusion area discount. Solidworks is the global standard for CAD and Mcam is the most used CAM system so having those two will make you much more valuable to the industry.

 

[Herding Cats]

Solidworks has not changed their price since it's inception. I would not expect it to be a few hundred, though maybe I'm wrong and it's some type of educational deal.

With few exceptions I have found things complexity to often be directly related to their capabilities.

 

[T_Dubs]

Good deal, I kind of thought they were somewhat of an industry standard, but don't know much about it which is why I asked.

Perhaps I misunderstood the promo pricing or maybe they are gonna do something like Fusion and limit features. In that case, I'll just have to save and get the full version.

I'm not doing enough to warrant more than what Fusion offers me, it's just frustrating. I do believe Fusion is a pretty powerful software for $5-600 or whatever it was.

 

[SD&M]

G-coder brings up a good point: if you intend to seek employment doing this sort of work, it would make sense to find out what potential employers value or use for s/w. While learning any of these programs will make it easier to learn other similar programs, picking something popular probably makes lots of sense initially.

There may be better programs for particular types of work, but knowing XYZ program when the employer wants to hire someone fluent in ABC might be less than ideal.

If you have the liberty to choose based on other criteria then this might not be an issue.