this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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While I wear the sackcloth and ashes of FreeCAD, it is a full 3D modeling suite and is perhaps more than you need.
For something free and fairly simple in 3D modeling you could try TinkerCAD. This is a cloud based CAD that just runs in your browser and is often a gateway into more complex modeling for 3D printing. Many people find it all they need for the basic modeling they want for 3D printing. They do have some tutorials to get you started. I have taught it to 4th grade students using iPads for very simple 3D models they could 3D print.
Another easy to access program is OnShape. This is another cloud based, run in a browser 3D CAD solution. While it is aimed for commercial paid usage, they do offer a restricted free hobby licence. This is a "real" 3D modeling program and the interface and tools reflect that. But they do offer free modeling tutorials and videos to learn with. And their help search is very extensive and written in plain language to follow. I have taught OnShape to high school students because it would easily run on their school issued education Chromebooks. The most difficult part was getting the kids to use a mouse - they are all about touch pads and screens these. And CAD software ain't made for that.
As far as being "Intuitive" well, when you are learning ANY new thing, it's going to seem like that at first. You need need to learn how to think before you can do something with a new tool. And mastering CAD software means you need to learn how to think about design before you can worry too much about where the buttons are. And you learn how to think by doing and failing - often repeatedly. But if you pay attention to what you are doing and try to remember how things worked, you will start to learn how to think.
So pick a piece of software that works on Linux. Do a bit of google and find some tutorials for your choice of CAD and then do the tutorials. Do them more than once! Do them until YOU are comfortable with the process. And then keep practicing. I have been using various CAD softwares for 30 years and I still need to practice. Otherwise I lose the skills.
You can do this!
Heh, no problems here using a CAD software it's just that am always hunting for options. Currently am set on SolveSpace and OpenSCAD for simpler models. SolveSpace is good enough for pretty much all of my needs. It's a bit more of manual work instead of clicking an option, chamfers being one example, but I come from machine engineering high school so that way of work suits me just well as we use to draw everything by hand, so I am no stranger to planning ahead anyway.
So far I have avoided cloud solutions but I guess that has evolved a lot by now. How do they fair with more complex shapes with more restrictions?
Having tested OnShape years ago, where it already appeared very feature rich and smooth, I have no doupt one can for sure realize complex multi-part assemblies with it. For me the interesting part, in a professional environment, would be the software's capabilities of its drawing module. Full digital workflows seem to gain track, but for me detailed technical drawings are still the bread and butter application of a CAD.
OnShape will restrict the number of active drawings you can work on at a time. It's a simple matter of turning them on and off. Worst part of OnShape is all your work is public, (they are very up front about this), and can't be hidden. But, you can make a single model as complex as you wish. It's always the latest and greatest version of OnShape every time you log in. And it simply works on any platform that can open a web browser. There is even an app for your phone. I don't really use it at home because I live in a very rural area and electricity can be kind of sketchy at times, let alone the internet. So it can be unreliable for me.
Fusion360 is quite popular due to the perceived ease of use. To be fair there are a ton of very good tutorials for it and the documentation is top notch. Having used a few different CAD packages over 30 years, I'm not overly impressed by it - it's not better or worse than any other choice when you start really working it. I don't care for how much of the "good stuff" they have locked away unless you pay to play. But most hobby users won't notice that issue. They just want an .stl to 3D print - which Fusion is pretty slow to output. And because Fusion uses a half-arsed half local/half cloud solution, (Windows only need apply), and it updates on login it is slow to load, which I dislike. Plus if you do lose the internet, it severely cripples your work until you can log back in.
SolidEdge offers a free hobby version and it worked pretty well when I messed with it for a couple of months. It had a SolidWorks feel to it for me. It's a local install and requires no internet to use. I thought the assembly was limited and not always super intuitive. But it's been a few years since I tried it.
I just use FreeCAD now. I like the local install/run. And right now things are changing for the better with it. Lots of new features and more importantly improvements to the underlying code to make things more robust are coming in the development releases. And more and more excellent tutorials are being created and released. If you are willing to learn, FreeCAD offers a full 3D modeling experience.
Overall, you can design rocket ships to the stars with any of the online CAD solutions, well maybe not TinkerCAD. But, like any other free version of commercial software, they will impose limits on us freeloaders. Try one and see if you like them and it suits your needs.
Thanks. I'd love Fusion or SolidEdge, but they don't support Linux. And am not keen on always-online solutions.
Neither am I - hence FreeCAD.
But a very large number of users simply don't care about avoiding cloud solutions or using Linux. And OnShape does offer some unique solutions to low powered computing/agnostic OS uses and for the more corporate minded needs, the ability of two users to be able to work on the same model at the same time and see each other's changes in real time. Which can lead to faster collaborations and iterations of a design. And as someone who has wasted weeks of my life emailing design changes back and forth, this would have been a very handy thing at times.