Just wondering what’s everybody’s favorite program these days? A long time ago Ladeana taught some great Fusion 360 classes and it was my first adventure into making 3D things, it helped a TON! But Fusion 360 seems to have really cracked down on licenses and support, they claim to be free for hobbyists but there’s a new version you have to download and it’s not supported by the windows computers in the lab and it’s very limited in what you can do and I have some prints I need but I’m really frustrated trying to get back into it. the forum worlds are full of complaints about the changes.
do you all still use it, or should I switch out and learn something new?
my needs are simple, I need to sketch and extrude. sometimes import a dxf, sketch and extrude if I’m going big… what’s the best program for that?
edit: just looked at the calendar, maybe I should just go to thursday night CAD which is TOMORROW.
I bounce between Fusion 360 and Onshape for CAD work. They each have their own benefits, but I actually prefer Onshape for modelling. The free account does require that all your designs are publicly available, but that doesn’t matter for a lot of the stuff I do.
I just finished my Associates degree in machining Technology and have used catia and mastercam these are great programs but the cost cost and training is not that feasible.
I never got into fusion 360 but i can say i absolutely love onshape it is my go to software for my 3d printed designs.
It has a lot of the features the big name companies have and just recently i discovered there is user made addons you can get for onshape too
This is a sample of one of my more complex designs put to real world applications. (It was complex due to the compound angles and wrapping text.)
It is a fast beer bottle filler for fermenter!
I have become a fan of FreeCAD. It is open source and free. It is an application that you download and run on your computer, as opposed to web browser based. It is cross-platform with builds for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
If you haven’t tried FreeCAD in a while, it might be worth a look. It is under pretty heavy development. Quite a few people, and even some businesses, have come over due to exactly the things you point out about Fusion.
Like all CAD software, there is a bit of a learning curve. But the workflow, particularly under the “Part Design” workbench should feel pretty familiar if you are used to Fusion.
FreeCAD can do a lot. It is perfectly fine for 3D print designs. You can export a 2D dxf file that works great for the laser cutter. And, the “Path” workbench is suitable for generating g-code for the shopbot. With some post-processor work i think it could work well for the plasma cutter as well, but i haven’t tried that. The path programming is a bit rudimentary and might not be quite up to speed for Tormach milling, though I’m sure it would work for simple designs.
As an open source product there are tons of addons contributed by the community as well.
I have considered doing a FreeCAD class. If there is interest I could try to put something together.
Okay I’ll give onshape or freecad a try - also my 12 year old really wants to get into this, she loves 2D graphic design so before we hit up CAD night another week. She told me she read up online about stuff and tried installing blender but wasn’t sure how to get started, I was like “Christian says blender is crazy but James loves it” so now she think there’s some holy war to pick a side on which is even better motivation if you ask me.
Just to clarify. James L. Loves blender. I’m a freecad guy. In fact you can export 3d models of your KiCad board into freecad to make custom enclosures
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On Thu, Nov 10, 2022, 16:38 Christian Kindel via MakeICT Forum <noreply@talk.makeict.org> wrote:
Someone (Who I’m not going to tag, but look above for suggestions) was complaining about the lack of long emails from me recently. Then has to poke me about this, after I even sent them a short email. So Now I’ve got to do a long post on it.
Fusion 360 has decided to pull a lot of it’s stuff and become even more locked down, and worse. Things like importing models from other things simply don’t work well, and they used to. So I’ve stopped using it.
Frankly, my design software is now:
Inkscape: 2D
Occasionally, Python for SVG generation, but that usually flows through Inkscape at some point.
OpenSCAD - Parametric designs for 3D printing. It’s great for doing things like telescope filter adapters, and frankly threading for 3D printing which I’ve tried in other programs (inc, Blender, Fusion360) and somehow it works, but they don’t work without significantly more rework. (For reference, a standard 1.25" telescope eyepiece filter is an M28-0.6 (28mm - 0.6mm pitch) used by everyone and yes, that’s how it is with the mixed units. I think there’s one company that actually specifies the threads in whatever tpi it is, but it’s not a normal number. Maybe Meade?)
One example for camera filters, Step Up filter adapter 52-58 OpenSCAD (And other sizes) by james_lan - Thingiverse which is very useful to get the large size filters and not all the smaller sizes, like I’ve got lenses ranging from (at least) 77, 72, 67, 58, 52, 40.5, That OpenSCAD file let me make step up/down rings for filters, so I could use like my 58mm IR filter on my mostly 52mm lenses.
KiCAD - PCBs (mostly)
Blender - Everything else, including some PCBs (It was for a model lighting, and if you’ve ever tried to work with traditional circuit design programs with iregular PCBs and rotations… yeah, Blender was FAR better), video editing, animation, CNC (BlenderCAM, takes a bit to get used to, but it actually works well, and a lot of the generation uses the same methods as Fusion 360.)
Blender is awesome.
PCB Design
Animation
Texturing
Rigging
Import of just about everything that’s mesh based and export of a lot of them.
SVG/DXF & most other similar things for export.
Modifiers
Nodes (This is incredibly powerful.)
Grease Pencil.
Simulation
Fluid simulation
Rigid body simulation
Both realistic ray tracing and non-realistic rendering
Video editing (and you can use other things with that as well, like some of the node system stuff)
Object/Motion tracking so you can add special effects to real footage.
Scriptable. (You can use python to do your 3D modeling! Yes, That’s just as nuts as it sounds.)
2D Animation
CAD
And I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten some things, because I only use a subset of features of it. It’s more artistically focused, but you can also do things that are pretty large and accurate.
You also discover some interesting things, like how the roof is over the boiler room. (The picture isn’t correct, nor is the model quite done.) This is also the original config, so the hall doesn’t have a roof over it, that was added later.)
I need to learn one of these too.
Im not excited about my designs being public. Im on a design team and they may veto that.
But im basically designing what will be like some LARGE Lego stacking blocks. But not legos. Just “sorta like industrial size legos” And I need multiple iterations of their stackability.
Im an old paper and pentel draftsman, trained in the dark ages. 1971. 30 years in aerospace. So I read drawings just fine. Now I hear we have a CAD night? Am I too late?
Interesting discussion. Thanks for starting it Kim.
Ive been going to a “Drawing meetup” at Milkfloat and yes, I have found lots of folks suggesting design variations for my pencil drawings of … boring old stacking blocks. Hey, somebody is going to make money at it. My favorite suggestions have been from 9 year old Natalie btw. Credit where it is due.
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