SolidWorks CAD courts our community with Maker-specific cheap software

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This topic represents no competition to Bambu’s efforts but might complement what is often discussed here. Bambu might be wise to see if they can partner with Dassault Systèmes, as they seem to have complementary paths and serve the same customer base.

I just saw this yesterday. In April, SolidWorks started offering a cheap $48/year or $15/month Makers License with bundled items like 3D Creator and 3D Sculptor. It seems too good to be true, and I don’t trust any software company to make such a deal without strings attached. I fully expect this is their way of buying market share in the emerging 3D printing community. This makes you wonder if our small and frugal community has finally come of age, attracting marketers to target us with specific product offers. They even have a heavily curated 3D community forum, evidenced by the large number of staff-generated posts. Clearly, they are heavily investing in capturing the hearts and minds of 3D enthusiasts, from cosplay artisans and artistic creators to mechanical designers.

This is a far cry from Fusion360 price hike exhibited by their competitors at Autodesk who went from $480/yr last year to $680 this year.
https://www.solidworks.com/solution/3dexperience-solidworks-makers

If you listen to the full video. I have to wonder why Dassault Systèmes a very, very French company and they don’t let you forget it, is clearly driving this from their US subsidiary. If you know anything about EU companies and the French in particular, every idea is a great idea so long as a Frenchman thought of it. Americans? Ptui!!! What do they know? :yum: At any rate, these videos seemed to be aimed squarely at an American demographic which is nowadays uncommon for a new marketing effort. Normally we see a decided effort by modern companies to create videos with “inclusive characters” as cast members. So this is indeed a curiosity in this day and age.

They already racked up 10 episodes since January geared towards bringing folks up to speed. That spells a serious push on their side and further evidence of commitment to the 3D enthusiast market. But can the make money?

Link to the play list

I use SolidWorks in my day job, but because of intellectual property and regulatory requirements in my industry, I can’t use my company license for personal projects. So, this may be an option I may consider.

My problem with Dassault Systèmes products, like many EU software companies, is that they go out of their way to be anti-Windows GUI. Anyone who uses the ERP systems made by Germany’s SAP will know what I am talking about. If there is a standard way of applying a Windows GUI overlay, Dassault Systèmes will go out of their way to make it different just to spite Microsoft and give the appearance of being “innovators.” This creates a very jarring experience for Windows users, as the file menus and such look nothing like the native OS, making navigation a counterintuitive experience. So, I have very mixed feelings about this apparently pandering offering, knowing that the company has an openly high contempt for its non-French and Windows user base. Maybe it’s just the bad experiences I’ve had with them, but picture if Apple and Microsoft had a love child and sent it to grow up in France, and you might get SolidWorks. :rofl:

BTW: Now that I think about it. Autodesk is guilty of the same user interface crimes as the EU companies so maybe its an industry thing. :wink:

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Is this different than the " 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS for Makers" they have been trying to push for the last couple years? Hopefully, as that was a flaming hot pile of garbage.

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I would be curious into your insights as to what was bad about it before I take the plunge in time and money.

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AutoDesk still offers the free hobby-use license for F360 — I know because I use it! — , and it’s more than sufficient for designing models meant to be 3D printed. Its primary limitation is that you can have only ten “editable” models at any time (the rest are all read-only) but in practice I don’t find this to be an issue. When you’re done with a design, just mark it read only.

(I will leave the arguments about whether their requirement to use their cloud storage for designs is a good feature or an annoyance to others.)

That said, one can ask, “Will AutoDesk eliminate the free tier of Fusion?” The answer is known only to AutoDesk, but that question can be asked of any company that offers free or low-cost versions of their tools.

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@3D_Print_Stuff made a video that summed up my experince.

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Thanks for posting that. This mirrors the experience my company is currently having after the recent SolidWorks updates. I couldn’t help but notice that in the video, he was on Windows 11, and when he scrolled through the complaints on the SolidWorks forums, many of the screengrabs included in the posts showed the telltale blue Win 11 wallpaper. My company has had to downgrade many of our newer computers to Win 10 after the most recent SolidWorks update to the new release because SolidWorks simply isn’t stable on Win 11. Given Microsoft’s declaration of support for Windows 10 ending in 15 months, this is causing quite a ruckus. This could also explain why it’s so cheap.

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FWIW, you can Export your Fusion files to your computer rather than Save to their cloud.

And an .f3d file stored on your computer can still be edited, even if you already have ten editable files in their cloud. You just have to Export when you are done, rather than Save.

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While this is true, I learned something last night. If you use this version of SolidWorks and import an SLDRW file or another SolidWorks formatted file, your file will be blocked from import to any other SolidWorks professional version software upon saving it. Note that you can still export it into a neutral file format such as STEP and IGES, which is far better than Fusion360, which only supports IGES in the paid version. However, you will lose the feature history. This likely won’t make a difference to the audience they are courting, but it’s worth noting.

Here is a video that is pretty comprehensive in the differences between the two versions including the lack of transportable files. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6WiDiKCKA8&ab_channel=SolidProfessor