Only advice I can give, not knowing your learning style, is whatever CAD platform you choose will seem challenging until you "get" the mindset it uses. Not really hard, but all have an approach which will become natural after some time. Take something you did in Tinkercad in 10 minutes and recreate it in say freeCAD, initially it’ll seem like something so easy shouldn’t be this hard….in short order it’ll be a breeze.
Jurbl
joined 1 year ago
There’s a ton of content out there for everything but a huge difference between being a teacher vs being an expert. People think it’s easy, just make a video of me doing something, but instruction is much more than that.
I like SketchUp for my woodworking stuff and wanted it to work with 3D but the shortcomings at the time weren’t worth it. The product could have changed so this could be dated.
Always seemed to fight getting models watertight which has been no issue with tinker, fusion, openscad, or freecad. Also, it was hard with curved objects. Lastly, it didn’t have parametric support which is a must for design once/use many things. As an example, I have a simple funnel with a lip to fit into bottles or whatever. Need one for a different container? Just a couple of adjustments and I’m printing.
Not saying not to use it but others have listed many alternatives for 3D that are superior. SketchUp seems to have a good community for questions it’s just that other tools have better (IMO.)
Totally agree with Bishma on Tinkercad, it has limits but you’ll be building stuff. I came from SketchUp which isn’t strong for 3D printing, played with Blender for a short bit then sucked it up and dove into Fusion.
I started watching videos from Paul McWhorter on YouTube who walks through things slowly instead of some of the other guys who go at a lightening fast pace, not saying they aren’t good but too many what just happened there moments. Paul’s videos are slightly dated but still strong for basics.
Wife got me into the hobby to go along with my other interests like woodworking and restoration, "something to keep him busy", but she’s a beast for scouring thingiverse and printables for stuff along with her own "what if" ideas. It’s great, sometimes I’m not interested in the object but getting there is so cool.
Could be semantics but I configure (tune?) my profile to brand and color and leave it unless a roll is printing oddly. Basically, I’m looking for adjustments to flow, retraction speed and distance. Overture black and white are the same but recently used a hot pink and bright green from two different manufacturers where my Cura Overture Black/white profile sucked.
I like them. Only issue I’ve had was self made, dropped a spool and it dented the cardboard which caused it to hang in the Sunlu dryer. Probably print some rings for my next bout of clumsiness.
From afar Macron sometimes looks like a capable leader, transitions for decent periods of petulant child, and finishes with clueless on major issues.