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Cad programs
Hi gang, I am looking for a cad program that is good for cnc/3d work etc. I have been using the “for personal use” fusion 360. I’d like to buy a program that works well for 3d printing and for cad and cam design. I really don’t want the annual payment program because I’m not a big manufacturer. I see I can buy rhino outright, is this a great program that will do it all? I think i see a lot of you using it. I’ve not tried it and would like your opinion or suggestions for any or all options.
Cheers, Dan (another poor luthier)
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12 Replies
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Why don’t you want to continue using the personal use fusion?
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Fusion is a cloud based program which means if I have no internet connection, which can happen for me, then it will not operate. They have also began to allow only 10 editable items per year with the free version. I’m not certain yet if I can change them to read only files and keep going or will have to either stop or pay their subscription fees to carry on. I need to figure that part out.
I am very curious what others are having success with.
Cheers, Dan
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Hi Dan. I had the same experience with Fusion 360. I couldn’t import my files and yes all cloud based. I was hoping to use it, but think I won’t. I was mainly looking for a less expensive solution than Solidworks. I started using Solidworks with my daughter’s school account and finally bought it. The student version is $100 a year. It has all that I need in that the CAM software is built in. I’m just starting to use the CAM so can’t be 100% sure that it will be able to give me a good program for a neck. Maybe try the student version like I did. Or if a family member is a teacher that will work also.
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you can very easily move files in an out of your 10 active files, it’s a non-issue.
You can work offline some if you don’t have internet access but it’s kinda clunky and I probably would not.
I would advice sticking to Fusion 360 or Rhino for the very important reason that most people doing instruments are using one or the other and unless you are a super genius, you’re going to want to ask someone questions. There may be a Solid Works guitar community but I am unaware of a lot of instrument makers using it. Having people to help you is a BIG DEAL, I would have been SOL without the people on Austin Shaner’s Discord page. Tom here is a master with Rhino.
Fusion can be frustrating but is totally free and very very powerful. I haven’t used Rhino, I’m taking a wild guess from watching people that it’s mildly less frustrating, somewhat less powerful and totally not free. Tom and his students do beautiful work, I’m pretty sure if Tom tried Fusion he’d be doing beautiful work too.
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Thanks Kat, that’s a great idea. I’m guessing you need to prove you’re a student to do that though. I’ll look into it. I looked into Rhino a bit more and found it’s nothing like fusion so probably not a good one for cnc work.
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Thanks Paul. I do think fusion is a great program and will continue to use it. It’s so good to know about the editing part. That makes me feel better. I recently got a program called Vcarve which is a much simpler to use program. Between it and fusion I think I am set.
Cheers, Dan
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The company that is making my CNC router uses Fusion 360. Of course he pays for it yearly. He sells Vcarve so I know he thinks it to be a good software. I’m tempted to buy it as it is a one time purchase. He also recommends Rhino and I know there are many in the forum that use Rhino. I think I’m the only one that uses SOLIDWORKS so the comment about help is very valid. I have found a great teacher on YouTube Professor Cameron. I feel like I’m really learning now not just going from one video to another trying to find answers. Yes you would have to have a family member that is a student or a teacher to keep a student or educational license. It’s a bit of a pain and my paid for version still says I’m a student which is really annoying. The bottom line I think is to pick one you think will be in your budget and learn it. Learning another is tough.
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It seems like you’ve got a great set up there Kat. I also found a really good on line teacher for fusion, Paul McWhorter. He’s super easy to understand. If you go back to fusion I highly recommend him. I was able to get a good deal on vcarve, that’s why I’m trying it, but I’m just learning it. I think it will do inlays well but not sure if it will do all I want. I’ll keep you posted.
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Rhino… very functional and very affordable…check our Frettie Mercury’s online CAD courses as well…money well spent…
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I’m very tempted to purchase Vcarve. Would love to hear how it goes for y’all. I’m using the Fusion 360 free option at the moment. I’ve almost got a resonator neck cam’d in Fusion but dang it was hard, those necks are very complicated. It ended up being a 4 setup operation so I have to flip my stock 4 times in the machine. It’s like a puzzle figuring out which operation to start with and all the following ones. I have two 2×4’s glued together which will be my test resonator guitar neck blank. Fingers crossed.
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Hi James. I have not found or seen any 3d work in vcarve. It is great for doing inlays and lettering type things. I have been going down the learning path for fusion because I am finding it the best thing out there for curved weird parts like what’s involved in a guitar. Vcarve doesn’t have a way to extrude anything.
Cheers, Dan
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I think 4 setups is too many, unless you are doing production stuff and you’re REALLY good. Each flip induces some amount of error (could be close to zero, or a lot).
I’ve switched to doing my acoustic necks as a kind of V joint at the headstock (birds beak without the joint), thus I can machine my neck face down and the headstock separately, and a few seconds of work gives me a perfect and cool looking joint.
Acoustic necks are hard AF on CNC, there’s no way around it. Fender style necks are super easy.
Another option is to CNC the back of the neck but make a routing template for the headstock and route that afterwards. Basically indexing the headstock is super complicated. I did devise one way of doing it that would be relatively straight forward but still complicated.
The Austin Shaner discord has tons of conversation about this stuff.
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