TLDR = what’s a good next step after kid-friendly 3d creation tools?
Solved = Fusion360 is voted as winner, we even got a nice tutorial playlist.
Hi all - I’m still very much a new user. Highly skilled in IT but just getting my feet wet in 3D printing, since a month or so. I love the possibilities! I can physically create anything I can image, it’s amazing.
So far, I’ve used mostly TinkerCad and done lots with it. The learning curve is practically non-existent, and it has sufficient features to do a lot.
But of course it’s not perfect. Obvious example: can’t do fillets, except in roundabout ways using negative blocks.
I’ve tried OnShape, OpenScad, Fusion 360, but found them quite a steep hill to climb.
Are these good choices, or is there something in-between that would make it easier for me to advance?
Okay we sound similar so I want to make sure you found this playlist about fusion 360.
I recently had the time to sit down and spend time learning fusion after a delete failed attempts previously and the biggest lightbulb moment I had was really getting in the mindset of how parametric cad works. I guess I had assumed it was a buzzword coming from IT but no, it’s like the difference between building infrastructure manually and building infrastructure with something like Terraform.
The other thing that was a big lightbulb for me is learning how to use the history in fusion, the first time I went back in the timeline and changed a dimension and it recalculated everything I about fell out of my chair.
Anyway, I hope that is helpful, I can try to answer questions but I am certainly no expert in fusion hah. that playlist above is what I used to get going, definitely haven’t watched all of it but the first few were really helpful.
Oh also, on shape and others are also parametric style cad so that is probably why they all seemed similarly frustrating.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
this playlist
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Oh thank you so much!! So Fusion is indeed the next logical step for me - thank you for that. Knowing that, I can invest time in learning it without wondering whether it’s even the right choice. And the piped link makes it so nice to deal with <3
Yeah! Once I learned a few basics and how to think in parametric it didn’t take long until I could make things that were in my mind which felt like a huge accomplishment. It still blows my min every time I think of something and then am holding it in my hand an hour later, it’s definitely worth the time.
I ended up just paying for the basic fusion license because I quickly had more than 10 ideas I wanted to work on hah. I know it’s expensive but compared to the other options it is by far the most reasonable, especially if you ever want to sell anything you design. I also felt like I would spend that much on a physical tool to do a project if I needed it so :shrug: but the free version is definitely workable.
The other thing that frustrated me was manipulating the view and to solve that I finally broke down and bought a space mouse which is an absolute game changer, I shouldn’t have waited so long and I will never go back haha. I found a deal on one on eBay but there are also a few DIY printable projects like this one which look awesome and I might build anyway.
ETA: The space mouse works in many applications, it even works in Bambu/Orca slicer!
An hour later?? Either you have a really fast printer, or you build really small things 😅 My MINI+ needs longer than that for a matchbox. But yes, 3D printing is as mind-blowing as color TV, or the first time I used a scanner in the early 90’s.
manipulating the view - yes, I agree with you on that, too. The mouse-scroll-to-zoom works the wrong way round (compared to every other tool I’ve tried, or even compared to friggin’ Google Maps) and it irks me that there’s no setting for something as fundamental as that. Also turning my viewpoint needs **Shift+**middle-mouse-button, which is immensely annoying. I might fire up some custom-made AutoHotkey scripts to tune that.
That mouse is awesome … if you’re literally a rocket scientist. For home use, it’s way out of my league.