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
Rules
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No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
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Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
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No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
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No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
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Do not create links to reddit
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If you see an issue please flag it
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No guns
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No injury gore posts
If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is 
Moderation policy: Light, mostly invisible
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Thanks for this. I was initially thinking of starting with OpenSCAD but FreeCAD was another contender. Perhaps I need to go with whichever has the best documentation, examples, and learning resources.
TinkerCAD is free and browser-based. It's remarkably powerful for something that's basically explicitly supposed to be simple enough a child could learn to use it.
And I'll second trying to understand some G-code. When a malfunction causes your print to stop cleanly midway, pretty much your only way to salvage it is to figure out which Z-layer it malfunctioned at, and directly edit the G-code to start where it left off. It's finicky, but a lifesaver on large prints. Nothing is worse than 30 hour print failing 80% of the way in.
OpenSCAD is rather unique; you draw parts by programming them in code, which I never personally hitched horses with. Neat if gimmicky idea.
FreeCAD is trying to be all things to all people and achieving it extremely slowly. You can code parts in Python, and it has an OpenSCAD workbench, though my personal preference for workflow is Part Design; drawing 2D shapes and then extruding them into 3D.
Blender is another option, probably preferable for hand-sculpting/art/etc.