Your favorite free CAD Solution?

[Disco Volante]

FreeCAD has worked fine for me for a few years now. It has been under heavy development since I started about 8 years ago, and is now a lot more functional. Yes, it was a bit of a learning curve.
It works great with CAM, I regularly have parts watercut or lasercut. Never any trouble with the exported files, dwg or dxf or whatever. Also making 3D obj's for FFM 3D-printing.
Runs rock solid on Debian Linux. And it's really free..

But yeah, it's a bit of a twist of mind to get in there. Maybe my mind is twisted that way?!
I hope you find something that fits you.

 

[rock soderstrom]

Thank you all for the great feedback! I have looked at all the web links and there are some interesting solutions for me among them.

My experience is coming from realtime environments (Source, Unreal) and 3ds max and I figured out Fusion 360 in an afternoon with no consulting the manual. It's perfect for ex game devs. I was able to pretty easily sketch some pretty complicated stuff.

You are absolutely right, if you come from this corner, Fusion360 is the tool of choice. I tried it out and I was able to work with it effectively and quickly right away! The workflow and GUI fit very well with my way of thinking.

Fusion 360 is not free, but it's by far my pref one ! It's really really great.

As far as I understand it Fusion360 is free for private users for 3 years and then has to be unlocked again for another 3 years of private, non-commercial use.

Fusion360 comes with many restrictions in the free version. In how far this affects my needs negatively I can't conclusively judge at the moment.

The limitations are listed here in this comparison. The page is unfortunately only automatically translated from German. I could not find the original on the English page.

https://www-autodesk-de.translate.g...ersonal?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de

I have used OnShape before, and my boys have been using it recently for designing a competition robot (FIRST Robotics Competition). A lot of the FRC teams use OnShape now, but part of that is due to it being an online tool (runs in your browser), which has some advantages for multiple people working collaboratively. The tool is free to use if you make your designs public, then there are paid tiers for having private storage. Could be worth checking out just because you can try it for free without installing anything.

OnShape is insteresting, no doubt.

I don't think software solutions in the cloud are generally bad. I have had very good experiences with EasyEDA, for example. Since my projects are purely private, I have little fear of intellectual theft. The bigger problem is that the projects can be taken in hostage by policy changes of the software companies or by function restriction one is finally forced to $$ subscription.

But this can be the same with other distribution methods. This is also my fear for the future with Fusion360. Autodesk tends to make moves like this in my experience.

Mmm, I didn't notice that Sketchup Free is web-only now. That stinks.

As mentioned before, web-only can be ok but the many restrictions in the free version stinks more in my opinion.

I was negatively surprised about the restrictions of the free Sketchup version, on the other hand I can understand the owner of Sketchup, they have to be able to pay their bills as well.

I think it's generally a hard decision how much power you give out to your product users for free. It's a great thing when a lot of people use your software, it's less great when no one or only a few pay for it.

You also need to be careful with "free" software that is not a local perpetual license. Good chance the rug will get pulled, essentially holding your designs hostage until you pay up. See draftsight.

I agree. This behavior has happened in the past and will happen again.
That brings us back to the beginning. FreeCAD is the most powerful truly free solution from this point of view. You can certainly get very good results with it once you get used to the idiosyncrasies of this environment.

FreeCAD has worked fine for me for a few years now. It has been under heavy development since I started about 8 years ago, and is now a lot more functional. Yes, it was a bit of a learning curve.
It works great with CAM, I regularly have parts watercut or lasercut. Never any trouble with the exported files, dwg or dxf or whatever. Also making 3D obj's for FFM 3D-printing.
Runs rock solid on Debian Linux. And it's really free..

Yes, true! With CADRays as render engine you can generate some impressive beauty shots, too.

 

[PureBasic]

I'm using Sketchup, Freecad and Fusion 360.
Sketchup is great for architectural projects and interior/acoustic design.

I'm switching to Freecad and Fusion 360 for engineering.
Freecad is great (free and open source) as long as you don't need very complex shapes. Learning curve is steep and it's somewhat buggy. But it's open source and I support that. If you're a company, you occasionally need CAD and you don't want to pay an insane license fee, it's the perfect compromise.

Fusion 360 is a great package if you can use it for free.

 

[Bo Deadly]

I think it's generally a hard decision how much power you give out to your product users for free. It's a great thing when a lot of people use your software, it's less great when no one or only a few pay for it.

I think we're all going to have to get used to the idea of actually paying for decent software.

The importance of software is underestimated. Everything we do at this point is software driven. And I really mean EVERYTHING. You would not be able to put a loaf of bread on your table without the software used to handle inventory at the store and schedule a delivery and control the ovens and order a replacement part of some farm equipment used to grow the wheat to make the flour and so on and so on. Just like electricity before it, software is now a critical resource. When we run out of oil we will be in the "age of software". Our economy is built around software. Free software is great. It's a great venue for software developers to learn and get inspiration. But writing code for free doesn't pay the bills. And the quality is usually not great for various reasons.

So making all software Free, as some advocate, is counter productive IMO. If everyone's livelihood is so dependent on software, there should be a "software economy". If your job has something to do with designing CAD solutions, then I think paying $400 / yr for that is quite reasonable. Ideally the price would be scaled based on the monetary value that the software provides to the licensee but that sort of licensing model is impractical at the moment.

 

[totoxraymond]

I don't agree, There are lots of open source software that you don't pay for but can still be economically viable. Internet is based around FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) And they are paying developers to work on these projects. They just found another way to make profit.

There are several Linux distribution that are free to use for anybody, but they sell support services.
Apache and Nginx are used to run the vast majority of http servers around the world and they are FOSS.
Qcad for example is Open Source and has a free version, yet they sell services and professional (more advanced) licenses.

And we could find a lot more examples. I think we already are in the world of Open Source.

 

[JohnRoberts]

There is no free lunch, but drug dealers will get you high the first time for free.
==
One trend I've seen with free PCB cad was an association with PCB maker and/or components merchant.
===
One small custom metal fabricator provided a free 2d cad that didn't suck, I used them years ago for prototypes. I don't know if they are 3d by now link to metal fab

JR

 

[Bo Deadly]

I don't agree, There are lots of open source software that you don't pay for but can still be economically viable. Internet is based around FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) And they are paying developers to work on these projects. They just found another way to make profit.

You're talking about services and support and so they're not really making money off of the software, they're making money providing expertise for software that just happens to be open source and even then not completely. At least there's no benefit to the individuals providing services and support just because the software is open source. Probably the contrary. Many more people provide services and support for commercial products and probably make a lot more money doing it. Services and support are all part of the "software economy" but there is no "free software economy" despite what FOSS folks would like people to believe. Very few businesses provide services or support for purely open source solutions. They might use Linux as a platform but that doesn't make the Internet based around FOSS. That was true in the 90's when many sites were entirely FOSS stacks. But today, in practice, that's just not true. Most Internet resources are hosted by AWS, Cloudflare, Linode (just purchased by Akamai), etc which has a lot of infrastucture that has nothing to do with open source at all.

 

[ruffrecords]

The "free" in FOSS has never meant free as in beer but free as in freedom. The freedom to inspect the source code, modify it and redistribute it. There are various licences that cover this. The Berkeley Unix (BSD) has a very open licence which allows you to sell the modified code. All current Apple computers are based on BSD.

Cheers

Ian

 

[Phrazemaster]

TinkerCad is cool and free. Doesn't have all the tools that Fusion 360 has, but it's made and supported by AutoDesk. I've made some nice enclosures with it. Simple, but when you want to get complex there's a learning curve and it's probably not going to work for everything.

Mike

 

[rock soderstrom]

TinkerCad is cool and free. Doesn't have all the tools that Fusion 360 has, but it's made and supported by AutoDesk. I've made some nice enclosures with it. Simple, but when you want to get complex there's a learning curve and it's probably not going to work for everything.

A friend of mine is doing great things with TinkerCad. The colorful GUI is a bit deceiving, this is not a toy. 3D Printer guys use it a lot.

 

[rock soderstrom]

I think we're all going to have to get used to the idea of actually paying for decent software

I have no problem spending money on powerful software. Fusion360 has for me a realistic price tag for commercial users.

Still, I think it's understandable that (now) private users like me with 3 to 4 projects per year are looking for free or cheaper solutions with as much power as possible. Hence this thread.

One must not forget in the whole discussion, the software companies, besides the direct sales, also have a strategic interest to penetrate the market.

That's why there are also free versions for hobby users, packages for students and pupils - the customers of tomorrow.

 

[ruffrecords]

A friend of mine is doing great things with TinkerCad. The colorful GUI is a bit deceiving, this is not a toy. 3D Printer guys use it a lot.

Now I find that as counter intuitive as sketchup. I tried to draw an enclosure with a sloping front. No joy.

Cheers

Ian

 

[rock soderstrom]

Now I find that as counter intuitive as sketchup. I tried to draw an enclosure with a sloping front. No joy.

Of course, this is all a matter of taste. Personally, I didn't really get along with Tinkercad and Sketchup either. But Sketchup is closer to me than FreeCAD.
As I said, my favorite is clearly Fusion360. Of all 3D CAD solutions, this one comes closest to my experience and way of thinking.

 

[Phrazemaster]

Now I find that as counter intuitive as sketchup. I tried to draw an enclosure with a sloping front. No joy.

Cheers

Ian

I made a sloped enclosure. Start with a rectangle and then angle it and cut it. Not the easiest workflow.

 

[gullfo]

Sketchup is really focused on 3D - an example of sloped box - if you draw a 12"x12" "rectangle", then "pull" the square up (say 3"). then draw a "line" across the top (left to right - 2" in). "select" the front top line, and use the "move" tool to drag it down 1". voila. a simple sloped box. once you learn the basic tools and start thinking 3D, it becomes easy fast. and like Go, it can take a long time to master...

 

[Bo Deadly]

Sketchup is really focused on 3D - an example of sloped box - if you draw a 12"x12" "rectangle", then "pull" the square up (say 3"). then draw a "line" across the top (left to right - 2" in). "select" the front top line, and use the "move" tool to drag it down 1". voila.

Actually I wouldn't do it that way. Grabing and moving an edge can cause strange things to happen. Maybe not in this simple case but with more complicated objects you can get misaligned edges and splines. The way I would do it is to create a box as you said but then use the angle tool to add a line to the side of the box representing the profile of the sloped edge and then use the Push/Pull to select the area that will be subtracted and then push it away.

Once you go through the learning process with Sketchup, it is very easy to do some very complex things very accurately. One of the most powerful features is that you can grab a point and move an object (or object group more likely) and snap it to another point. This is critical for accuracy.

 

[ruffrecords]

I made a sloped enclosure. Start with a rectangle and then angle it and cut it. Not the easiest workflow.

I agree. My natural instinct would be to draw the end profile and then stretch if horizontally if for no other reason than it uses the dimensions I know.

Cheers

Ian

 

[Phrazemaster]

I agree. My natural instinct would be to draw the end profile and then stretch if horizontally if for no other reason than it uses the dimensions I know.

Cheers

Ian

Me too. I was just watching a video by AutoDesk where they talk about TinkerCad being the precursor to Fusion360. They purposefully dumbed down TinkerCad to make it accessible to kids but never really intended it for complex shapes etc. I may look into using Fusion360 now, which I have installed as a hobby (free) user. You can only have up to 10 files at a time with the hobby version though.

It's been fun though and I've managed to do some pretty cool things so far. Many hours of effort!

Thanks Ian,

Mike

 

[ruffrecords]

Talking of 3D CAD and limited online solutions, is there a standard file format for 3D drawing like there is dxf for 2D. If there is, do the limited online versions allow you to download you drawings in a none proprietary format so you could at least look at them in a viewer?

Cheers

ian

 

[ccaudle]

Talking of 3D CAD and limited online solutions, is there a standard file format for 3D drawing like there is dxf for 2D. If there is, do the limited online versions allow you to download you drawings in a none proprietary format so you could at least look at them in a viewer?

Cheers

ian

When I was working with mechanical engineers regularly (who were using Creo software, which was formerly named Pro-Engineer), they always asked for STEP files from vendors whose parts we were incorporating.
STEP file wikipedia entry