3 ms·
After 3D printing for years I started teaching myself how to use FreeCAD. It’s not the most newbie-friendly software but being able to design your own parts is
by jnovek 4y ago
After 3D printing for years I started teaching myself how to use FreeCAD. It’s not the most newbie-friendly software but being able to design your own parts is incredibly powerful. I design and print parts for the most mundane tasks.
These days I find designing a part relaxing, similar to the feeling of writing code for a personal project.
Apparently Fusion 360 is also free for hobbyists, I’m guessing that it’s a bit easier to learn than FreeCAD.
(I realize that designing your own parts isn’t practical for most folks but I think HN is a good audience for this.)
- dceddia 4y agoCame here to say the same, except so far I’ve been using Blender with the CAD Transforms plugin (mainly for the Sketch-like snapping abilities). I watched a few videos on Blender for Precision Modeling (search youtube) and started playing around. I’ve been meaning to learn FreeCAD or one of the others because the parametric modeling seems useful, but Blender has been good enough for my purposes so far - mostly adapters for tool vacuum ports, and other little things around the house and workshop.
- dekhn 4y agoI moved from FreeCAD to Fusion360 (I pay for a pro license) and the difference was astounding. Once I grokked the fusion360 model (which is both easier and more complex than FreeCAD) I was able to make forward progress very quickly. There are a lot of subtle little touches in the Fusion360 UI that make design easy.