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
-
No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
-
Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
-
No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
-
No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
-
Do not create links to reddit
-
If you see an issue please flag it
-
No guns
-
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
view the rest of the comments
In my view CAD is always worth learning, especially if you understand what prints best on your printer.
FreeCAD is basically the worse possible beginners tools. Don't get me wrong when you learn it, it's good and comparable to professional CAD software. But the learning curve is dumb.
Learn the basics first. TinkerCAD is free (from Autodesk) and will get you started. But if you want something which would take you further Fusion360 is fantastic for beginners.
The workflow of CAD is as follows. Sketch -> Action -> Sketch -> Action. Lets say you want to make a box with a hole in it. Sketch the outer box -> Extrude it -> Sketch the inner box -> Extrude/Cut it.
I have trouble remembering what key pans and what key rotates view and the thought of actually figuring out how to manipulate the 3D file in FreeCAD felt like it was gonna melt my brain.
But thank you for the recommendation. TinkerCAD made me feel like I was playing with children's blocks but at least I understand them.
I also think I'm gonna try get started on learning something else after I brute force this stupid single print. And I think it will just be trying some of them out.
Yeah Fusion is the way to go, especially if you are learning. Lots of hate for it around here, due to Autodesk endlessly changing their policies. But there's no point in learning the basics when you don't know if it's you... or the software.
But if your issue is just navigating the 3D space in FreeCAD, you can set it such that it's the same in TinkerCAD/Fusion 360. FreeCAD calls it Revit, and you can set it in the lower right corner. Hold you mouse over it to show tool tips.