Building in Fusion 360 or other cad/cam first?

[JoeMartin]

Received my plans today and pumped to start working on it.
Has anyone built the plane first in Fusion 360 or another cad/cam program?
I was thinking about building it first in Fusion 360 to get a good grasp on it and then can rotate, pan and zoom.

 

[Schmleff]

If you are fluent, it would be worth the effort in my opinion.

 

[dcstrng]

As an education tool, or simple entertainment, CAD/CAM can be very good – especially for complex aircraft/machines for which there is little secondary information… But for relatively simple structures like the Sonerai family, especially given the hundreds of photos available on this site, it is hard to imagine a position, phase or aspect that hasn’t already been depicted nine-ways to Sunday and refreshingly available to a potential builder…

 

[kennyw]

I've daydreamed about becoming proficient enough at it to generate CAD files of Sonerai that could be dissected at will. I have a subscription to AutoCAD. But, too many irons in the fire to spend much time with it right now. One day!

 

[JoeMartin]

I have Fusion 360 and Vectric Aspire. I plan on using my cnc router to make as much as possible as it's more accurate than I am. I think making the plane in fusion will actually help a lot, at least me anyways.

 

[JoeMartin]

I've daydreamed about becoming proficient enough at it to generate CAD files of Sonerai that could be dissected at will. I have a subscription to AutoCAD. But, too many irons in the fire to spend much time with it right now. One day!

Kennyw, get yourself a 3Dconnexion space mouse. I have the compact and love it! Makes navigation so easy in the 3D environment.

 

[oahupilot]

Has anyone built the plane first in Fusion 360 or another cad/cam program?

I did it in Autodesk Inventor, before Fusion 360 came out. F360 could do it but it would be a bit tedious as it lacks frame generator like Solidworks or Inventor. I also did the cad work after building the plane to do FEA stuff and mods.