this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023

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3DPrinting

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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.

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There is now a FreeCAD community on Lemmy.ml (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

Nice! More people using it is more better. Anything to prevent the inevitable enshittification of Fusion 360.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I haven't found a community on Lemmy for Solidworks and there is one for freeCAD?!?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not exactly surprising, lemmy users are pretty big on open source.

[+] [email protected] -40 points 1 year ago (3 children)

pretty big on open source.

Yeah, well we all make bad decisions once in a while.

Still doesn't explain why no Solidworks community seeing as how it's the most used CAD program.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

If you look at the community its empty.

You could...just make a solid works community, there isn't even a reason to be jerk about freecad you're not obligated to use it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’d be curious to see numbers Vs Fusion360.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

F360 is at under 7%. Of course the chart that I found is a few years old.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is a reason for it: The manufacturing industry is really conservative when it comes to software. Solidworks has been the industry standard for a long time and that prompts adoption the same way Adobe products have been the standard for the visual creative industry.

Solidworks is whitout a doubt the most powerful suite of CAD tools available if money is of no concern. With licenses for the full suite totaling near $100k. They were also the first to seamlessly integrate injection moulding simulation simulation workflows for designing plastic parts.

All of this is hardly relevant for the hobbyist or maker comunities, but it does explain why so many people in the industry tend to touch Solidworks at some point in time.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Whole lots of wrong information there.

I absolutely love Solidworks, but it is hardly the most powerful program if money is no concern. Not even close. It's bigger brother, CATIA is far more powerful but costs way the fuck more and is a mess in terms of interface and usability.

And I have no idea where you got $100k out of, but that's ridiculously off. There are a ton of modules to pick from and yearly licensing fees, but a base package starts at roughly $3k and goes up to around $15k.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

it’s the most used CAD program.

It is? I thought Fusion 360 was.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Think about where you are. Solidworks costs many thousands of dollars for a licence. FreeCAD is free. Which one do you think the vast majority of Lemmy users would use?

[+] [email protected] -20 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Solidworks.

By far.

It owns 1/4 of the CAD market all by itself. No one, and I mean no one, who uses CAD for a living is going to waste their time with FreeCAD.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why on earth would you think people who use CAD for a living are the target audience for either FreeCAD or a Lemmy community?

[+] [email protected] -10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why the fuck would you think people who use CAD wouldn't hang out on a site like this? What kind of ridiculous assumption is that.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean if you think all the Solidworks users and professional CAD people are here, why don't you make a community? We can have both things. It's really weird how much you seem to hate FreeCAD from all your comments. Lots of us use it, and it's growing a lot in the 3d printing community. No one is trying to make you use it at work.

Imagine if I got upset at a Python community being formed because I use SAS more at work and it has a way bigger market share in government statistics or healthcare. Do you see how weird that sounds to everyone else? Do you see why a way bigger percentage of people here, on this open source forum, are probably using and more passionate about open source python instead of closed source and crazy expensive SAS? Yes SAS has been around for way longer, has way better support, and is generally more performant (please don't @ me python lovers - yes it can be fast, but look inside yourselves - you know it to be true), but like...there are already tons of SAS forums, and no-one uses it outside of a business context, because it's way too expensive. Even if we were having this conversation 10 years ago when SAS had a much higher user base overall and not just in niche industries, I'm sure there would be plenty of people here who use both, and probably tons of SAS at work users, but that doesn't eliminate the need for a Python forum. Same thing with CAD.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I would also argue that the majority of CAD users use it for work. Work pays for the license.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Not always. Its 5-15 k € for a license with 1 year of updates. Many small companies find a way just like students do. Its just more user friendly and more powerfull. Im afraid Im too old to see foss on that level before I die, but Im sure it will get there one day.

I love the idea of 3D CAD foss on lemmy. Im gonna follow and hope it gets better and more popular

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Well of course. That doesn't mean that as a user I wouldn't want to connect with otherSW users, see what they are up to and even answer questions that new users might have.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People just starting out might. Especially if they don’t get liscensed from their schools or jobs.

FreeCAD is way too complicated to pick up compared to other options, IMO, but they’ve always had a strong and loyal community

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I just watched a tutorial video. Once I figured out how sketching works a lot of other tasks became easier to figure out and intuit.

I do think knowledge is disorganized, said knowledge is out of date and a lot of included legacy workbenches are offered which adds to initial confusion and the errors aren't very helpful.

I use the linktree branch though. Prior to learning freecad I also worked primarily in a codeCAD library in golang which probably helped with understanding basic operations.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Do you think a majority of us in the 3d printing community use CAD at work or something?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Id like to see solidworks community on lemmy

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Or oven better CAD modeling community.

[+] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Join us, you'll only think in constraints and geometry the true Gods of this existence.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Try out CAD Sketcher in Blender. They've achieved in approximately 6 months, what has taken FreeCAD 20 years to ultimately fail at. Yeah...FreeCAD has been around for 20 years and is still as bad as it is.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm glad you found something that works for you but there's really no reason to put down anyone's effort and hard work. Freecad may be rough around the edges but it's put cad in more peoples hands then Autodesk ever well.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

but it's put cad in more peoples hands then Autodesk ever well.

Well that is patently untrue, lol - I don't use CAD Sketcher, I pirate Solidworks and am working on moving to Plasticity.

https://www.youtube.com/c/MakerTales -- This guy has a lot of good tutorials on both if you want to use something that will let you be productive, instead of using open source simply for the sake of using open source. (Even then, CAD Sketcher is a better bet)

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

...is what people say when they have any kind of proof of the otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The burden of proof is on you my friend. You made the claim. Back it up? It's hilarious you're using this line of reasoning when the burden of proof so squarely lies in the person making the claim in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oof debate team drop out over here, cope buddy.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

That's what I thought, thanks for playing. Currently Autodesks products sit at something like 6.6m+ users and counting. Additionally, Autodesk has taken over universities and is likely more peoples first introduction to CAD in the first place. Your claim holds no water whatsoever. You are delusional if you think FreeCAD of all things has touched more people than the commercial products. Even Blender, with its incredible capabilities can't be said to have gotten more people into 3D modeling, etc than commercial offerings like Maya, taught in schools everywhere. And I say this with the whole-hearted belief that Blender is better in every way to the commercial offerings.

There also is a reason why I put down their effort and hard work. Hard work doesn't mean success. If someone with no technical knowledge toiled away building a 3D printer that was garbage (Say, the FT5, FT6 for example), their product isn't more righteous because there was more work put into it. You'd still tell people to get a Prusa, or something better. There's nothing wrong with that. Telling people to get into FreeCAD just because it's open source, with no consideration into the fact that FreeCAD breaks more frequently than other cad programs, is more difficult to use, has a terrible workflow, and is generally going to result in frustration moreso than productivity, is absolutely a garbage take on things.

Do you WANT people to like 3D printing? Because I do. Pushing them to some software that is going to drive them away from that ultimately, because of your open source "religion" is counter to that goal.

So much as I will do my best to drive people to open source, I will always account for ease of use, capability, and learning curve before I let my open source evangelism override those key points. If you direct people to software that ultimately makes them hate the task, it drives them away.

Ultimately I think it would be a huge mistake for this community to try driving people to FreeCAD in spite of better alternatives. In the long run it will drive people away from the hobby. I've got more than 12 years of experience in 3D printing, and I run my own 3D printer repair shop which repairs thousands of machines each year, so I kind of know this stuff.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

You all are fighting over all these cad programs and most of us are over in tinker cad going “look! I made a box yay!”

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Are you even allowed to post anything else than parametric 3D model of stalin?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Of course, you can also post a model of Lenin or Marx, or of the proletariat.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

I could easily add a new rule if you'd like

riodoro1 is only allowed to post parametric 3D models of Stalin

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Thanks I've been looking for this

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

if only there were enough people using solid edge to have a community around it 😭