The frustration with F360 continues. I went back to try it, on the basis that parametric design really is the future & I should get on board for how ever many years I have left.
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I found a YT video series by Paul McWhorter called Learn Fusion 360 or Die, or something to that effect.
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So, I’ve been watching the series. The one thing that’s really struck me is how often Paul says things like, “Oh, that was unexpected” or “I see I was in the wrong mode”, or “It could be tricky trying to select that line”. It happens quite a few times. I kept thinking, “This is an introductory series, supposedly by a guy who is an expert, and he has all this trouble getting the program to do what he wants.” It really is ridiculous IMHO. F360 seems to suffer from the old “well, you have to adapt your thinking to suit the program. It’ll take a while, but you’ll get there” philosophy. These kinds of programs just grate on my nerves. Programs should adapt to people, not the other way round. Blender is much better at it IMO.
Now TinkerCAD is another story. I decided not to try it. I didn’t realize it’s all online. I don’t like working online, storing my stuff in the cloud (too many years in IT security I suspect). I realize F360 tries to make you work online too, but I get around that by only exporting the couple of designs I tried. Now, if someone can tell me how I can use TC without storing any designs in the cloud, please do.
I think if you work with a program long enough, then you recognize its strengths and weaknesses and can handle it.
Freecad is easy to learn in the basic functions, the details and special possibilities are only available after an intensive
study of the documentation and with tips and tricks from videos like Irv provides us with.
I’ve been having better luck with F360 the last couple of weeks. Once I started to mentally project what a sketch would look like extruded, and learned that I can set up offset planes anywhere I like, and sketch on any surface, it got much easier. The same might apply to FreeCAD, but I haven’t really looked into it. Between Irv’s, Paul McWhorter’s, and Lars Christensen’s tutorials and tips I picked up enough to actually start designing some of the things I want to make.
I do have 1 issue left: I have been unable to completely constrain the main thing I’ve designed so far. That hasn’t stopped me from being able to extrude it, and it is printing fine, although it will take days to print the different components.
I am using FreeCAD for all my designs. It still has some flaws, but it is free and available on all platforms unlike Fusion.
The upcoming 0.19 is a great step forward, but with the future 0.20 and the fixed topology naming issue this Application is finally getting its feet out of the mud.
Ear savers are more or less the easiest CAD you can do and I would design them in FreeCAD as a learning experience in total.
Changing an existing model is never a god idea. Yeah, it works, but it is a lot of work as you don´t have measurements or so. People never include the source files. You will fiddle more with getting it centred, getting the font right, having the right thickness and and and. In the result you learn nothing about CAD as just just cut and glued like in pre school.
So if you really want to lean CAD I suggest to start right there and design your own version. It won´t get much easier and here you already can learn the basics.
I like FreeCAD alot. Blender is a beast with all its movie features it is quite overwhelming. No idea if it changed over the last three years, but I found it very hard to find an entry. DrVax has a nice little tutorial to start with FreeCAD. I would suggest to start with that and see how it goes.
PS: You just remembered me that the ear protection I use for month was designed by me. So I uploaded the stuff to Thingiverse a few minutes ago. Text is not the strong suite in FreeCAD yet, but it is much easier than dealing with STLs. I usually include my FreeCAD source file, so everyone can modify them without the hassle of guessing and probing. It is not the similar design as the one you linked, but maybe it gets you inspired to do something more fancy
Thanks for your reply. I will give the tutorials a go and try to make my own as you suggested. When I try the link for the thinkiverse I get the “end of the internet” error. I wonder if it takes time to upload. I can see the thumbnail if I search for your uploads but can’t get to the actual page. I will give it some time and see what happens. I see you also had the name badge project uploaded the FreeCAD file available so I will take a look at that as well.
Hello everyone, I visited this conversation because I decided to go with FreeCad, I was starting to learn Fusion360, until they decided to change their licensing for free users, while not as restrictive as some make it out, there are no guarantees for the future. I think most of Dr. Vax’s viewers fall into that category. I want a program that is more powerful and easier to use than Tinkercad for complex designs, and is open source, so this seems to be it, and Irv’s videos are a great start.
I think I finally figured out my main objection to FreeCAD. I was comparing it to F360. I knew I liked F360 better, but wasn’t certain why. But recently I’ve been working in openSCAD, which has a very simple, streamlined interface. That’s when it really struck me: I can’t stand the garrish nature of the FreeCAD interface. All these bold, multi-colored buttons are just too much to look at. It’s like going to the Akihabara district in Tokyo, with it’s overabundance of neon lights. My eyes don’t know what to look at. The garrish coloring is the biggest issue for me, but the crazy number of buttons is also a huge factor. I just can’t concentrate on the model because the toolbars distract me too much.
Before somebody tells me that I can tailor the toolbars to my liking, I can’t. I may be able to reduce the number of toolbars, or even organize them better, but I cannot change the colors used on them, at least not as far as I know. Nor can I make the symbols used on the buttons to be more simple, more elegant. It’s like trying to read an article laid out by someone who is brand new to desktop publishing: they use every available typeface and a dozen different font sizes, making the article unreadable.
So, for me, it’s looking more & more like I’ll go with openSCAD… even over F360.
At first glance I had the same reaction. This just looks like from a decade or so ago. Sort of like the early versions of Windows. I’m going to give it a try. While I purchased Simplify3D, I like open source “free” software. I’m simply trying to get more power than Tinkercad provides. Lets both continue to provide our experiences. Good luck
