I highly recommend onshape these days if you're ok with a web app that makes all your design open source (the pay for private space model has a steep cliff, but for my hobby purposes and open source enthusiasm it's great).
Recently I transitioned to freecad. There was a bit of a learning curve since it is more constraint based than fusion requires.
Once freecad 1.0 came out for prerelease use I started using that instead...it is much improved over the old method. A lot more similar in use to other CAD packages.
I suggest finding a few good tutorials and working through them...it took me a lot less time to learn freecad (for me) than it did to learn fusion...and it removed one more closed step in my mostly opensource toolchain.
I get an embarrassing amount of mileage out of Tinkercad. It's free and incredibly easy to get going with. I keep meaning to take some time and learn a more sophisticated program but the payoff has never offset the speed of delivery that I get with a rough cut using Tinkercad.
This week I needed a spacer that lets me use a hernia belt that doesn't interfere with an ostomy bag. Spent an hour modeling it in Tinkercad and then printed it out. Even if I could have found such a thing off the shelf, it's likely to have cost an outrageous amount since it's medical related.
Ive been using my 3d printers to build things for my home and shop for quite a while. There is nothing quite like just being able to draw exactly what you need and having it appear magically a little while later.
Some of my favorites have been tie-wrap mounting bases for a variety of equipment, spacers and standoffs for conduit, a bunch of archery related stuff, motorcycle parts and accessories, cabinet hardware and latches, baby-proofing stuff household and bathroom fixtures and gadgets..... I'm realizing that this list goes on basically for ever. Its come a log way since the only options were ABS and PLA lol.
For people interested in printing useful things that print easily and don't break, you might find the following books useful:
The Zombie Apocalypse Guide to 3D printing: Designing and printing practical objects : ISBN 978-1530542772
What CAD tool should I be using as a hobbyist now? Maybe 7 years ago I was using Fusion360, but it didn't work on Linux at the time.
I highly recommend onshape these days if you're ok with a web app that makes all your design open source (the pay for private space model has a steep cliff, but for my hobby purposes and open source enthusiasm it's great).
I've lately been dabbling with feature script and making model configurations (eg a model size or appearance variant) for some CNC work. Here's a CNC laser module I modelled with onshape: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/2d5e7a41d9b0da06350348dc/w...
I used to use fusion for many years.
Recently I transitioned to freecad. There was a bit of a learning curve since it is more constraint based than fusion requires. Once freecad 1.0 came out for prerelease use I started using that instead...it is much improved over the old method. A lot more similar in use to other CAD packages.
I suggest finding a few good tutorials and working through them...it took me a lot less time to learn freecad (for me) than it did to learn fusion...and it removed one more closed step in my mostly opensource toolchain.
I get an embarrassing amount of mileage out of Tinkercad. It's free and incredibly easy to get going with. I keep meaning to take some time and learn a more sophisticated program but the payoff has never offset the speed of delivery that I get with a rough cut using Tinkercad.
I have solved the only problem OpenSCAD ever had: -- You cannot change parameters just by pointing at them.
https://youtu.be/eG5lhLYvihQ?si=d4qgLLUzfsIjir7M
This week I needed a spacer that lets me use a hernia belt that doesn't interfere with an ostomy bag. Spent an hour modeling it in Tinkercad and then printed it out. Even if I could have found such a thing off the shelf, it's likely to have cost an outrageous amount since it's medical related.
Nice work!
Ive been using my 3d printers to build things for my home and shop for quite a while. There is nothing quite like just being able to draw exactly what you need and having it appear magically a little while later.
Some of my favorites have been tie-wrap mounting bases for a variety of equipment, spacers and standoffs for conduit, a bunch of archery related stuff, motorcycle parts and accessories, cabinet hardware and latches, baby-proofing stuff household and bathroom fixtures and gadgets..... I'm realizing that this list goes on basically for ever. Its come a log way since the only options were ABS and PLA lol.
For people interested in printing useful things that print easily and don't break, you might find the following books useful:
The Zombie Apocalypse Guide to 3D printing: Designing and printing practical objects : ISBN 978-1530542772
https://amzn.to/4fRZBKL
And
Functional Design For 3D printing : ISBN 978-0692883211
https://amzn.to/4ibmEle