I can’t break the onshape habit. I really like that it keeps my whole history in the cloud and I know the quirks already.
I really want to use freecad, but I haven’t opened it since I did my last project on it. I am using too much muscle memory with OS.
muscle memory = absolutely. That’s how I am about programs I’ve used for years, such as SketchUp and Adobe Photoshop. I do hotkeys I don’t even remember if I try. I can only do it when I’m not thinking about it! LOL
Heh, I tried opening a stp in freecad the other day. After the fourth crash, I opened it in 360 and edited it there.
When I was getting started with the CNC, Autodesk started changing the licensing for the free version if Fusion360, so I avoided it.
I used FreeCAD. Ultimately though, it seems to not be quite ready, and I started learning Fusion360. I used to heavily use TinkerCad for 3D printing, and have done projects in it that I would NEVER do that way again. I actually designed an entire 3D printer in TinkerCad, and it’s still in use.
I have looked at OnShape, which seems promising. OpenSCAD too. Being that my trainig was innprogramming, you’d think Id gravitate that way, but it’s not my favourite.
Last time I used SketchUp I think it was still Google branded. Pretty sure it was more than 15 years ago anyway.
Yea, I dropped SketchUp when it became a paid app. At the time there wasn’t a free version that I know of.
I have used versioning when I am about to make a huge change to the design. My over kill CNC project has 3 major versions and each one looks like a very different machine. My Timber Bot also has a couple versions. I have gone back to old versions just to copy or export parts or sketches. I tried to do a branch and merge once but it didn’t work like I expected.
I have worked on one project with another guy. That was fun. We were able to work together at the same time with live updates.
I didn’t realise you could work in teams with the free version?
@jeffb3 I’m not familiar with Freecad, eager to hear how it works for you. @DougJoseph I have experience with SketchUp, SolidWorks, and OnShape. I did a simultaneous CAD exercise where I modeled the same thing in SolidWorks and OnShape and I found OnShape to be way better at versioning and parameterizing. Actually SolidWorks has a decent representation underneath for versioning and programming parameterized elements but it’s difficult to access. The only downer for me was OnShape didn’t support offline work.