Can’t even take a short break from 3D designing stuff. Glad I’m switching over to FreeCAD. All I wanted was to grab some dimensions from an old model.

    • oatscoop@midwest.socialEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      I just wish there was a FOSS alternative to Rhino 3D, or they offered a license that didn’t cost $995 for a single user.

      None of the cloud crap, doesn’t required a subscription, and it can run on a potato … it’s just too damn expensive and Mac OS/Windows exclusive.

  • RandomLegend [He/Him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    Exact same situation for me aswell… i was so happy to see that developer version of FreeCAD that completely overhauled the sketcher tool for on the fly defining

      • RandomLegend [He/Him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        i believe it’s already implemented in the latest version but it was presented in the 0.21 dev version where you could start to draw a rectangle and had the boxes to contrain their lenghts automatically pop up while drawing the rectangle for example

  • N3Cr0@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    Almost the same situation here. However, my first designs in freeCAD had lots of errors and I experienced lots of crashes and bugs. Didn’t really get into it.

    My tool of choice is now OpenSCAD. It does exactly what you are designing - not more, not less.

    • DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.comOPEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      I might take a look - the learning curve on FreeCAD is pretty steep. Not that I wouldn’t expect any other CAD to be much easier, but I feel there’s a lot of assumed knowledge about concepts that appear to be unique to FreeCAD. Kinda increases the study load, if you catch my drift.

      • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        FreeCAD has an OpenSCAD plugin. Personally, I’d stick with FreeCAD regardless of workflow since you can do both in it. It has its quirks, but once you get used to it, it’s great.

        • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          7 months ago

          any advice on getting constraints to actually behave? I can’t seem to get it to actually create geometries more complex than a box. (and forget master-sketches. that irritates me.)

          • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.ukEnglish
            0·
            7 months ago

            Which workbench do you mean? Are you okay with basic sketch/extrude, part design works well enough, but as you say constraints can be a pain. Tbh just assume you’re working with the points for the most part - polylines work fine for slightly more complicated shapes.

            My “formal” CAD training was Dassault Systeme’s CATIA V5 training manual, so I tend to default back to that. For basic geometries, use basic polygon shapes/combinations of those, for anything more complex I tend to use a polyline and sketch out a rough shape, then fully constrain to the dimension I need. If the geometry goes all to hell then stop and just use the mouse to grab a point and pull it back to where it should be before you go any further and then constrain it. (My sketches tend to be noisy with constraints just FYI).

            Mangojelly’s guides on YouTube will get you pretty far (though he doesn’t constrain as much as I personally would, I suspect this is just because he’s demoing techniques rather than giving best practice at all times. he knows the software/techniques super well and is great at explaining it).

            Based on Mango’s recent video there are a ton of enhancements for sketcher constraints on the latest dev branch, so hopefully they’ll be on main soon too.

            If it’s assembly constraints, the only assembly workbench I’ve used is assembly3 - it works kind of how you’d expect an assembly workbench to work, but you do need to hold its hand a bit. I’ve gotten into the habit of, import as step, rename part, add to list of parts, use linear translation with the mouse to get the part roughly where it needs to be and then start applying constraints to put it where I want it.

            • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              7 months ago

              I’m mostly talking about part design.

              I’ve discovered freecad is great for FEM, though. (well, the best option that doesn’t cost oodles.) Mostly I design…elsewhere and import the meshes for that. I’ll give Mango’s videos a look.

          • Honytawk@lemmy.zipEnglish
            0·
            7 months ago

            Here is a tip: constraints don’t need to behave. You can leave parts unconstrained and it will still work.

            You can just eyeball the placement, and make sure the constraints that matter are constrained. The rest you can leave floating freely.

            • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
              0·
              7 months ago

              Doesn’t thaT really scare things up later if (when) you need to make adjustments?

              I’ve almost never left something unconstrained that I haven’t regretted later.

              • Honytawk@lemmy.zipEnglish
                0·
                7 months ago

                FreeCAD is already wonky if you try to adjust things later, whether they are constrained or not.

                It actually makes it easier to adjust, because when it is loose you can move things around without it affecting the rest of your work.

                Some things need constraints of course, but a lot of it can do without.

      • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        Check out the Adventures in Creation YT (or Piped) channel. He does a very exhaustive set of tutorials from beginner to advanced that is well produced and explained.

        • kent_eh@lemmy.caEnglish
          0·
          7 months ago

          MangoJelly (also on youtube) has a bunch of beginner friendly FreeCad tutorials.

    • cynar@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      While OpenSCAD is amazing, it is limited in some ways. It is also very marmite-like. You either love it or hate it.

      For those confused, OpenSCAD is a scripted CAD package. You effectively write code, rather than dragging the mouse around. I personally love it, but I know others who absolutely hate it for the same reasons. It depends a LOT on how you think about problems.

    • Herbert_W@discuss.onlineEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      Fellow OpenSCAD user here. I’d recommend it to anyone as a thing to try, but not necessarily as a thing to certainly end up using.

      I love how much control it gives you over your designs and how you can use that to make intelligently parametric parts. I’m continuously frustrated by how it expects you to make (or find libraries for) everything from scratch. For example, I’ve recently discovered ClosePoints which is (a) brilliant and (b) makes me wonder why the heck this functionality isn’t built-in or at least in a default library. I’ve also found that using it for anything complicated has forced me to learn how to write better-organized code.

      You still have to put in work to learn how to use it. It’s just a different kind of work.

  • space@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    Give Solid Edge (from Siemens) a try. It has a free for hobby use edition. It’s not perfect, but I’m pretty happy with it, and none of the stupid restrictions of Fusion.

    • AKADAP@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      Fusion 360 used to be free for the hobbyist too. FreeCAD is GPL licensed, so it will always be free.

  • Aux@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    I’m getting disappointed in F360 as well, but existing open source alternatives are pure cancer. Basically, I’ve started making my own open source CAD. Hope to release some basic POC in a month or two.

    • Richard@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      They are not pure cancer. You should be more grateful for the effort the FOSS community volunteers are putting into creating a free as in freedom ecosystem, without any reimbursement whatsoever. Instead, they’re having their work attacked by folks like you.

      • Aux@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        Look, mate, I’ve contributed to many many open source projects over the last two decades. Including Klipper if we’re talking about 3D printing. FreeCAD is a piece of shit. It’s just a fact.

    • stallmer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      You’re saying you’re starting from scratch on a brand new CAD program yourself rather than contributing to an existing, established project like FreeCAD?

      • dustyData@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        Cue xkcd comic about how we end up with new standards. It’s the same with FOSS projects. Every new stubborn headed dev things they will get it right this time, wasting work instead of contributing and pooling efforts and resources that would get better improvement and quality faster than starting from scratch.

      • jkrtn@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        I mean, it would be cooler to not call the existing ones “cancer,” but I support them trying something new. Yes, it will be an uphill battle, but wasn’t LuaJIT done by a lone genius? I hope they’re successful and we have a new CAD option.

      • Aux@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        FreeCAD is a ridiculous mess. The only way forward for the project is to dump the code base and start from scratch.

      • Dimand@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        The existence of foss projects should never exclude the creation of alternatives if someone wants to try.

  • teotwaki@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    Had this happen to me as well this week after a few months of not using Fusion 360.

    Turns out it’s a software update issue. Just close the app every time it fails, and eventually it will manage to update. I have an insanely fast internet connection, so maybe you need to keep it open for a while to download the updates.

    • DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.comOPEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      Yeah, I’m on 1Gbps fibre and have been trying a few times. It just seemed to get an update, so hopefully that’s it. Bloody annoying.

  • Flumpkin@slrpnk.netEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    Yeah I got into Fusion360 a while back but predictably it gets worse and worse. Now I have to learn freecad so I don’t run into the same shit again lol

  • romkube@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    I use Autodesk Inventor when at work, but I’m trying to learn FreeCAD for my own hobby project. And while I’ve had to reprogram some workflows I’m slowly getting there. What really excites me about FreeCAD is the different workbenches, such as CfdOf which gives you a nice and understandable gui for OpenFOAM, finally making CFD somewhat accessible to the masses.

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      My favorite feature of FreeCAD is the spreadsheet. F360’s Parameters window…it’s been awhile since I’ve used it, but you weren’t able to rearrange or sort parameters, there weren’t any hotkeys or ways to quickly enter values so you had to move your hand from the keyboard to the mouse a lot, plus it wasn’t as multifunctional.

      • aesopjah@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        F360 parameter entry was so lacking. And what a strange feature to not fill out since as you say it’s basically just a spreadsheet. Hell, let us import actual spreadsheets so I can have a baseline each time for parameters I’m always inputting such as 3d printer specs (line width etc)

    • Naich@kbin.social
      0·
      7 months ago

      I like FreeCAD. I know some people hate it, but I find the requirement to do things carefully and properly to avoid horrible errors later on really focusses my mind on what I’m designing. I end up with something that is probably better designed than if I could just lash something together and let the software sort out the mess.

    • DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.comOPEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      Look, I’ll happily admit that F360 is an excellent CAD program. It kinda sets the standard, but the constant shifting of the goal posts for the free personal use license, plus the Hotel California nature of cloud streaming the app, just pisses me off.

      My brother’s using it professionally and he’s quite happy with it. But his business is paying for a full license for him, so he gets all the benefits, and very few of the annoyances. He’s readily admitted that, were that not the case, he’d be looking at FOSS alternatives himself.

  • Blackout@kbin.social
    0·
    7 months ago

    I use Fusion every day for like 10 hours a day and never see these messages. You just have a local bug. If you aren’t making production models then the free services are for you. This software is still a bargain compared to what was available 15 years ago.