There must be some GrabCAD users on here.

Just got an email saying they are closing the Workbench down which is a shame as I used it quite a but for storage & management of models & drawings.

I know Fusion 360 is popular though I hate anything from the Autodesk family & I dabbled with OnShape but I don’t think either had the storage or the easy web view of files that GrabCad does.

Anyone using anything similar or got any alternative suggestions?

Thanks

not sure what the workbench is but i regularly pinch models from Grabcad…?

Never used GrabCAD (except to download models!) but I do use Fusion 360 (paid).
It’s VERY cloud integrated so everything is stored in the cloud by default – easy to create a weblink for your project which others can then view with the online viewer.
No idea what Workbench brings to the table but Fusion has versioning & collaborative features built-in.
There is a web viewer for your files but I’ve never used it, & it looks like you have to specifically upload files to it rather than just being able to access all your files bu default, which seems a bit odd.
There’s a LOT of griping on the forums about the “crippling” of the free version, I never found it too limiting when I was using it though. Depends what you’re using it for (and if you’re making money from it or it’s just a hobby!) I’d recommend checking it out though.

I use Fusion360 and it’s fine for my basic at-home needs.

They back-tracked on a couple of the restrictions added to the free version a couple of years ago (IIRC you initially couldn’t export step files, but they backtracked on that).
It’s easy enough to sign-up to & get a free version if using it for hobby means.

I find the way it works compared to Solidworks or Pro/E (Creo) a bit confusing when it comes to assemblies, but generally muddle through.

I am not sure about on a PC, but for your phone or tablet there is a simple model viewer available.

Fusion 360 is good, and it was pretty familiar as I’d use inventor for a number of years, but once the free 12 month trial ends it’s not free.

I’ve been using FreeCAD and solvespace recently neither of which is perfect, but adequate for knocking up simple stuff for the 3D printer…

but once the free 12 month trial ends it’s not free

you have to do it manually every year, but you definitely can renew the free licence indefinitely at the moment (I assume that’s what you meant as there’s no 12 month trial AFAIK)

I use SOLIDWORKS at work and hate Fusion 360. Onshape is ok, and you can now get a maker version of SOLIDWORKS, but it cost £8 a month. Best free one is Solidedge, IMHO

Fusion 360 user here (full fat version through education). Was SOLIDWORKS for years and to be honest I missed SW a lot to start with. Now, kind of grown to like Fusion.

I used Fusion 360 but I didn’t like the fact you couldn’t reference driven dimensions and I was also worried about investing too much into it if they were suddenly going to become even more restrictive with the free license.

I use FreeCAD now. It’s definitely not perfect but I find that it has a lot more potential, especially if you learn a bit of python.

I don’t need a new CAD program, I’m sat here with a full Solidworks licence.

GrabCAD Workbench was a very handy CAD based online document management tool that let us review legacy drawings for all out products. The beauty of it was we can store and view all our drawings since day one as it’ll open the hand drawn stuff in PDF, the Autocad, the short lived Solid Edge files & now the Solidworks stuff plus the occasional supplier STEP file. To be honest we don’t refer back to them all that much so while it’s not super important, its also not worth us sitting down & converting everything from one file format to another.

Sounds like you need a PDM system

richmars
Sounds like you need a PDM system

Thats exactly what we need & I probably should have made that clearer to start with.

cookeaa

Fusion 360 is good, and it was pretty familiar as I’d use inventor for a number of years, but once the free 12 month trial ends it’s not free.

As zilog says above – it definitely is free – you just have to renew the free licence every year on their website. I’ve used it for about 4 years now & am yet to pay for it.

richmars

I use SOLIDWORKS at work and hate Fusion 360. Onshape is ok, and you can now get a maker version of SOLIDWORKS, but it cost £8 a month. Best free one is Solidedge, IMHO

Didn’t realise you could get Solidworks for £8/month! That’s a tempting proposition.
Keep meaning to try SolidEdge and not getting round to it. Should give it a bash.

The maker version of SOLIDWORKS is a pain to set up (look at the SW forums). There is also an online version, which I gave up on after 5 min.

To the OP, I’m not sure what file types SOLIDWORKS PDM will accept, but that’s where I’d start.

I used Fusion 360 but I didn’t like the fact you couldn’t reference driven dimensions

in sketches? you can do that. (perhaps you couldn’t initially, and they’ve added this feature, can’t remember!)

in sketches? you can do that. (perhaps you couldn’t initially, and they’ve added this feature, can’t remember!)

I just double checked and you’re right. Apparently it was implemented in January this year.

Still not ideal if you want to reference anything outside a single sketch though…

You can either project geometry between sketches, or use a user parameter (I use both techniques a lot!)

I’ve looked at Solidworks PDM but not for a while, it was originally discounted because its not web based (home & office users) & most Solidworks stuff is horrible to deal with.

As we’re tangenting slightly, Solid edge can also be rented / paid for monthly. Its a long time since I used it but found it more lightweight than SW so better on older machines, its sheet metal was far ahead of SW too.

Onshape started out well but seemed to want you to adopt its whole workflow ethos as it grew & it couldn’t do frames as easily as SW at the time so we abandoned it. I know that had a PDM so maybe I should reinvestigate.

Not used it but you can access SW PDM over the web.

I use Inventor and Vault for work, for home projects I’ve tried fusion 360 but can’t get on with it. Luckily I take my laptop home with me so I can use Inventor at home.

I have no use for a PDM program at home. But I think you can get vault for free on an education licence.

you have to do it manually every year, but you definitely can renew the free licence indefinitely at the moment (I assume that’s what you meant as there’s no 12 month trial AFAIK)

Eh? After 12 months they crippled it, no updating or saving or exporting and said to buy a sub of some sort. There wasn’t a “renew” option that I saw…

I’ll log back in next chance I get and see if I can renew/update my (free) home user account.

Eh? After 12 months they crippled it, no updating or saving or exporting and said to buy a sub of some sort. There wasn’t a “renew” option that I saw…

yeah, they don’t go out of their way to make it obvious 😃 This is a very common topic in the forums. It’s defo possible though, you just need to find the right option.

cookeaa

Eh? After 12 months they crippled it, no updating or saving or exporting and said to buy a sub of some sort. There wasn’t a “renew” option that I saw…

Here’s a link to some more info. Scroll down to the bit entitled: To renew a free personal license for Fusion 360

Autodesk Link

asbrooks
I use Inventor and Vault for work

My condolences ;o)

Re GrabCAD losing functionality, I don’t really get what Stratasys are doing? They’re kind of ruining the USP of GC to use the brand name for another, admittedly related, product. I’ve only ever used it to access CAD data myself and it is/was pretty good for that.

I’ve only ever used it to access CAD data myself and it is/was pretty good for that.

have you actually been paying them any money, though? 🤔

We renew our free fusion 360 license every year & use it commercially, well when I say use it, I put about one model a year in there to convert to something more useful. No one has ever checked up on us.

I don’t think there’s an option to pay grabcad money, we’d have probably subscribed if there was. I don’t really understand their thinking either, seems they are the only people providing an independent cloud based cad pdm. Would you be odd to scrap it.

I don’t think there’s an option to pay grabcad money, we’d have probably subscribed if there was. I don’t really understand their thinking either, seems they are the only people providing an independent cloud based cad pdm. Would you be odd to scrap it.

if you read their blog post about closing Workbench, they point you towards their new (paid) product, GrabCAD Shop. Sounds simply like they want to start collecting money rather than just supporting a bunch of freeloaders! (imagine a website wanting to do that 🤣)

zilog6128
I’ve only ever used it to access CAD data myself and it is/was pretty good for that.

have you actually been paying them any money, though? 🤔

Not once, most of it’s carp.

But shop isn’t a replacement for workbench so I’m still on the hunt for an alternative