I find that being able to sketch up things I need in CAD and then print them is both cool and really useful. It's the main reason I bought a printer in the first place. Thus far I've tried out FreeCAD, Solid Edge, and Blender. With any modeling package, you will have to dedicate time on a regular basis to really get used to them. FreeCAD is certainly nice for the fact it's free, just as it implies. I used it to design a few parts that were functional. It works, has some useful workbenches and add-ons. My problems were the software having bugs that caused models to break when trying to make changes, and available training info was often outdated. Siemens offers a free version of Solid Edge to makers, which is really nice, even with some of the advanced features turned off. It's a much more polished program with great training resources. You can only export designs as stl files, but that's fine for 3d printing. Solid Edge will slice and print, but I always import files into Orca and go from there. Blender looks really amazing for modeling, but I admit I haven't spent enough time learning it yet. You can use it to manipulate meshes, which is useful for customizing and fixing models. I've used it to Frankenstein together different models for custom prints I wanted. But yeah, while you don't have to learn to use modeling software to do prints, it opens up so many options for you to be creative. I think it's worth while.
3DPrinting
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
The r/functionalprint community is now located at: !functionalprint@kbin.social or !functionalprint@fedia.io
There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml
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Netfabb before Autodesk fucked it will fix a lot of hanging vectors, Sketchup is just way easier to use than any CAD software I've every used but may or may not be able to open files included with Thingiverse downloads, depending on what was used to make them.
DM me if you need a copy of either. I've installed both on Linux in the past as well and have a link to some documentation on that.
@Krauerking my opinion is no. For many things you can find a model on line. Much of the challenge can be getting the printer to work as you wish, so modelling might not be first on the to do list.
Good old Thingiverse. You'll get a great education in now not to design things for 3D printing wading through that slurry pit.
Yes, consider a 3D printer useless if you don't know how to use 3D modeling software.
May not be a popular opinion, but if you just want to fix shit like that, you can use Microsoft 3D Builder, it's super simple and pretty powerful.
Modifying existing meshes is difficult, especially more complex ones, I find that this makes it much easier to fix dumb shit or make simple modifications.
Oh my God the bastards at Microsoft killed the app!
I had used that before to fix files. It was great.
I can't seem to redownload it without jumping through hoops but know this was the right answer for none coder fixes. Sigh.
i've been dying to try an llm that can generate stls from natural speech