[jonpurdy]

I’m looking for a recommendation to get beyond TinkerCAD (for 3d printing). I learned it in 2019 and came back in 2025 when I got my own printer. It is comfortable and fine for my purposes but lacks basic things like chamfer and fillets.

Anytime I try to jump into Fusion or FreeCAD I immediately hit a wall (like trying pirated Maya when I was a kid).

[vonnieda]

Try FreeCAD one more time, if you haven't tried 1.0+, and it might stick. I've finally, in the past 6 months moved all my work to FreeCAD and KiCad after trying both many times over the past decades.

I highly recommend watching one of MangoJelly's beginner videos for FreeCAD, even if you have CAD experience. It made it very clear how to adapt my Fusion360 skills.

[bruckie]

OnShape is pretty approachable, and has lots of good tutorial videos. They offer free accounts for non-commercial use with the caveat that all of your documents must be public.

If you haven't tried FreeCAD recently, it's gotten a lot better in the past couple of years. It seems to have hit escape velocity, so to speak, and is improving rapidly in a way it hadn't for a long time.

[jijijijij]

> They offer free accounts for non-commercial use with the caveat that all of your documents must be public.

Major caveat! Also online access required.

And if you decide to upgrade, the next tier is 1,410€ per year.

For that amount of cash, FreeCAD can abuse and torture me quite a bit. Lol.

Also at the rate FreeCAD is developing and improving now, if more people would drop just 1k€/ donations into FreeCAD/OCCT, chances are your pains will ease rather sooner than later.

[Oxodao]

I'm not spending weeks to learn a proprietary, online-only software that will lock me out as soon as they need more money. Been burnt before on those kind of stuff

[IshKebab]

I would recommend pirating SOLIDWORKS and learning with that. It has the easiest UX of the parametric CAD modellers, and once you know the general sketch-extrude methodology you will find the others a lot easier.

Actually I think they have a hobbyist subscription which isn't totally extortionate now if you want to stay legal. Maybe get it for a year.

[WillAdams]

The new 1.1 update seems markedly easier to use.

There's also a soft-fork which some folks are funding:

https://www.astocad.com/

[poulpy123]

You may try onshape that is supposed to have a better accessibility than fusion 360, but unfortunately it doesn't seem that a CAD software with a complexity intermediate between tinkerCAD and FreeCAD an dthe pro CAD software exists