this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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3DPrinting

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Hey there! As a 3D printer addict I do a lot of small parts in CAD to print and use around the house. Lately I've been exploring all sorts of CAD software since finding out there's a more around than just Fusion360 and Onshape so I started exploring what's out there and jotting down my impressions.

Hope this is not spam, just want to help people see what's around and help them pick!

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[–] MargotRobbie 4 points 1 year ago (12 children)

This is a field where free software is unfortunately way worse than the paid options, and all the paid options are expensive.

If you are still a student, you can get SolidWorks for 100 USD a year, or Creo, Inventor, or Solid Edge for free. Completely non-commercial though.

If you are serious about this, get a SolidWorks permanent standard license (it's like 4 thousand USD?) or ZW3D permanent license which is just a bit cheaper, it's a relatively new Chinese company though, so a bit of jankiness is expected, but up to you if you want to try them out.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Way worse? Maybe more difficult to learn.

FreeCAD is a great free open source 3D modeling software with plenty of online resources to help you get started.

[–] ashu 3 points 1 year ago

FreeCAD has a lot of problems that stem from things like opaque errors (wire is not closed, failed to recompute) to how some features aren't just there (multi surface sketch is the big one for me) that continuously break my flow. I could adapt but it feels a bit miserable to use compared to others. It's not "hard" it is actually "worse" (for now)

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