Just want to thank everyone that engaged with my post today everyone was so chill and inspiring. I want to encourage us all in this community and all over Lemmy to continue to be kind and helpful. I had so many bad experiences on Reddit with hate keepers and know it alls and I’m glad we got this opportunity to be something better.
Ps: what cad software did you start on and what do you use now? Any tips and tricks will be greatly appreciated!
If you’re new to 3d design I usually recommend starting with Tinkercad. I moved from there to Fusion 360. Fusion is a huge pain in the butt if you don’t want to way them large sums of money, but it’s the cad software I most enjoy.
Step 1. Start with TinkerCAD
Step 2. Graduate to Fusion 360
Step 3. Go back to TinkerCAD because F360 was difficult
Final Step. Read other people’s comments about moving to Fusion 360 and cry a little
<wisdom sets in>: Perhaps I should learn this OpenSCAD thing or maybe FreeCAD. Then I would have all the fancy features and I’d never have to worry about paying for such software.
Actually, there exists no commercial equivalent to OpenSCAD that I’m aware of. Those doing generative design via code in industry are already using OpenSCAD or they’re using truly custom stuff.
Pro tip: Use the latest nightly build of OpenSCAD from their website and enable the new features that speed up rendering times by like 1000% 👍
The manifold renderer is a game changer. I seriously didn’t like OpenSCAD before that.
I made the jump using youtube tutorials but it’s been a few years so I don’t remember which to recommend. One of the reasons I keep using fusion is that it’s ability to move back and forth through design history so so well made it easier to overcome my early screw ups.
For learning or use. Fusion 360 still offers a free version for home use. There are great tutorials on YouTube or buy a $30/month Udemy account and get access to tons of courses and everything else in their library and cancel when you’re done learning.
For Mac and Windows only, limited to 10 editable designs and 1 drawing at a time.
The window part kills me… Wish there was a real Linux alternative.
Last time I checked it almost worked in Wine… No issues with the actual CAD stuff, but IIRC the window for managing projects was broken so once I had reached the limits of the free version I couldn’t close any open projects.
I use FreeCAD primarily. It’s powerful but the UI is a bit clunky and occasionally you have to spend a lot of time on something that feels like it ought to be a simple operation. Perhaps I ought to try OpenSCAD too
I used to run Fusion 360 in Chrome on my Chromebook and then chromium when I flashed the Chromebook to Ubuntu after my support schedule ended. I get it for free through the school district where I work and am using my two licenses on my computer and on my friend’s computer where I definitely do much of my modeling. -cough- lie -cough-
If you or anyone you know has an email account from an educational institution, you should be able to access it for free!
Shit I didn’t know about the education email thing, I’ll have to give that a shot soon.
I’m currently using the hobby license of it.
But you can save your files locally, and then delete them. The 10 file limit isn’t really a limit. It’s an annoyance.
You can just need to switch them between editble and read-only to save the hassle. But I have 14 on-going projects right now, it’s a giant pain to keep within that limit.
I didn’t realize you could toggle them. Thanks.
The 10 file limit really isn’t that bad, I just set my files in Fusion 360 from “editable” to “read only” and it frees up more space.
Then if I need to edit an older one I just go in reverse.
And the 1 drawing at a time thing I didn’t know was a thing as I normally only have 1 open but there have been a couple times I’ve been working in more than 1.