Realistically, is a free Onshape account with just 100MB usable?

3dcad

john_smith077 Just wait longer, copies are always without edit history and that the reason why size is smaller.

_Ðave_

I think many will need clarity of this ambugious line between colaboration and abuse if their going to buy-in on the concept of collaboration with anybody, anytime. After all this is a major selling point. 

I wouldn't want to invest a few years of data into a system and then discover that my presumption was wrong. At which time my choices would be to pay several thousand more than expected or have to convert 1000's of documents over to another cam system.
_Dave_

3dcad

@_Dave_ I think 10 doc limit strips out 'professional abuse' and only leaves few enthusiasts to save some $ by share/unshare bouncing all the time. It could be easily restricted for example in a way that if you share a doc with free, it will reserve one of 10 docs for next 24 hours even though it would be unshared. There is multiple available solutions how to gently stop active abusers without affecting honest collaboration.

I think we should concentrate on making Onshape awesome before creating problems that don't exist at the moment.  

_Ðave_

Really! @3dcad  Onshape considers it a problem for a potential customer to want to know the terms and condition before buying the product and investing there time in work that would have to be recreated years later over an undefined technicality. Would it be prudent for me to recommend to my employer to buy-in to Onshape and risk all of their time and effort without even asking for clarity on the subject?

3dcad

What I mean is that what ever they can say to us today, will probably not be the case after 5 years..

It's the same in everything, ten years ago Alibre offered expert license with possibility to install to 5 computers - after few years of abusive use they drop it to 3 and then after 3d systems came in picture they changed whole licensing to online activation based for only 1 computer at time.

When you invest in dropbox, google, or whatever cloud service there is that magical 'terms of use' -screen that defines all rights to change their rules/pricing/service as they wish without asking anything from us.

I agree with you that it would be important to know the thin line between collaboration/abusive use but I'm afraid there is no straight answer for that.

Only stable thing in this world is constant change.

michael3424

A higher-up at Alibre also promised $199 per year annual maintenance fees forever at one point in time.  He's no longer there, though, and maintenance is now $400/year.  It seems prudent to take any corporate promises, statements, or claims with a large grain of salt, even from Onshape.

Darren_A_Henry

_Dave_ said:

Thanks Darren

 I appreciate your input on this. From your reply I feel that i should elaborate a bit more for clarity of my intent.

My function at the company is to provide programming for our various cnc machining centers.

 I would like to start a document, create or import a part model, create a stock model and position it all in the proper orientation for machining.
Then I would want my in house engineer or contract engineer to design the required fixturing to hold the work on the specific machine.
 Now I can export the completed assembly to my cam software and continue my programming.

 It's my assumption that this is fair use because the engineers are collaborating with me and my document to achieve my ultimate goal of creating a program for a cnc machining center.

Thanks for the Advise
_Dave_

Hi.  As you know the Free plan enables a user to have up to 10 private documents and 100MB for private data that they own.  Just to clarify for new users:   if you create a document and share with a peer (machinist) the size of that document does not count against their data storage limit, but it will count as 1 of their 10 private documents. 

So the scenario you describe above is completely legal and well within our terms of use.  

Now with that being said, it is conceivable that someone can frequently un-share themselves from documents to stay below the 10 private document limit.  I think everyone agree that doing this every once in a while would be fine, but there is a point where this behavior could become abusive. Currently, we are putting our trust in our users. We believe most companies are willing to pay for the tools they use on a regular basis - and our sales of Professional Subscriptions are proving this to be true.

I hope that all makes sense.  BTW - There is a video that shows how you can create manufacturing fixtures in Onshape even when the product was designed in SolidWorks.  I think this is a great use case!  https://www.onshape.com/cad-blog/tech-tip-designing-fixtures

_Ðave_

Thanks Darren,

 I think I understand that collaborating with someone on a free account is fine for a short time. After they have to un-share themselves a few times to continue collaborating  they will need to look into a professional subscription if they wish to continue collaborating.

 Therefore it sounds like the scenario I described would be legit on a trial basis but not has a permanent solution.

 I'm now sharing and collaborating with my employer and machinist, My employer loves it and wants to buy a pro subscription for me to continue. But unfortunately when my employer and machinist reach 10 documents and have to start un-sharing documents to continue with the latest projects it appears to be an abuse.

 I suppose that this holds true for vendors or even customers for that matter. If I continue collaborating with anyone to the point that they need to start un-sharing from old documents in order to continue collaborating they must purchase a pro account to not be in violation of abuse.

 Darren, please correct if my understanding is incorrect.

_Dave_   

Darren_A_Henry

_Dave_ said:

Thanks Darren,

 I think I understand that collaborating with someone on a free account is fine for a short time. After they have to un-share themselves a few times to continue collaborating  they will need to look into a professional subscription if they wish to continue collaborating.

 Therefore it sounds like the scenario I described would be legit on a trial basis but not has a permanent solution.

 I'm now sharing and collaborating with my employer and machinist, My employer loves it and wants to buy a pro subscription for me to continue. But unfortunately when my employer and machinist reach 10 documents and have to start un-sharing documents to continue with the latest projects it appears to be an abuse.

 I suppose that this holds true for vendors or even customers for that matter. If I continue collaborating with anyone to the point that they need to start un-sharing from old documents in order to continue collaborating they must purchase a pro account to not be in violation of abuse.

 Darren, please correct if my understanding is incorrect.

_Dave_   

Hi Dave.  I think what your are describing may be a bit too strict.  Unsharing more that a few times can be completely acceptable.  I think there is a simple question that can determine if you are violating the spirt of the Free plan: Are you sharing with peers to legitimately collaborate, or to simply to help your peers avoid exceeding the Free Plan's storage limit?  

I don't think abuse will be a common problem because if people are using Onshape regularly as it really does not make economic sense to cheat.  Remember Onshape Professional costs only $100/month.  Wasting several minutes a day juggling shares and unshares, quickly builds to hours a month. Even with the lowest burden rates, the minuscule savings would not be worth the trouble.

 

_Ðave_

@darren_henry  Thanks for explaining a bit more.

_Dave_

noah_saxenian

what if you save the document as a CAD file on your computer, and then when you want to edit it, you upload it to onshape? This would certainly save a lot of space, although it might be unreasonable to have to keep going back and forth, downloading and uploading. Just an idea...

3dcad

@noah_saxenian
You would lose model history (feature tree) on every export, this 'workaround' means so much extra work that it must be allowed  

noah_saxenian

Oh. I'm new to onshape and 3D modeling so thanks for the advice.  

john_smith077

Noah - in case you missed it, if you copy a document from within an open document, Onshape does a purge on the new document, which saves a lot of space.