Stuff your 3D printer has made today...

[ajlelectronics]

I'm not sure if I have already uploaded any of this stuff?

First up is a quick spacer plate to allow me to fit an Alexa switch into a shallow back box. I could have made it a bit smaller, but it was a speedy job required!

Then we have a Weber blanking plate. It just stops any crud going into the inlet manifold during service...

Then the Scimitar Wolfrace wheel centre cap.

And finally a MK2 version of the Henry crevice tool. 'Er indoors wanted a greater rake angle and the silly text removed, so here it is...

 

[daedalusminos]

A couple of filament guides:

View attachment 328003

View attachment 328004

At the very least, they should stop the squeaking when the rim of the spool is up against the main strut of the spool holder and the extruder is at the far end of the bed. If I'm lucky they're also prevent the problem I just had on the tap storage drawer unit I've been printing.

Hairy Mary...PETG?

I feed my spools from over the top, not had any issues with standard spool holder

 

[Dr.Al]

Hairy Mary...PETG?

I feed my spools from over the top, not had any issues with standard spool holder

Yes: PETG. It is a bit stringy, but it looks far worse in the photo than in real life.

I hadn't had any issues up until now; I'm not really sure what caused it. The SUNLU filament spool is very distorted in shape, but I can't quite believe that caused the issue. As I wasn't in the room when it happened I guess I'll never know.

 

[Onoff]

A plastic piston to replace the easily broken ones on the Roughneck mortar gun. In grey PETG:

 

[AndersK]

Router template, just for another template so didn't bother with designing it for clamps. Just plain crude screw locking

 

[PhillipM]

Thanks for actually acknowledging this valid point sir.
I've never read anyone state look at what my machine made today.

Plastic is not my cup of tea.

Guess that goes for anything you touched with any tool bar your bare hands then.

 

[Onoff]

Toe board clip for a Youngman Minimax ali tower.

Tbh I've bought new ones but I just gave one to my lad and said copy that. More to keep his skills up/brain ticking over.

In grey PETG. A little ragged where there were supports for the lugs that go into holes in the boards.

 

[mtt.tr]

Working on the CNC power cabinet and control cabinet wanted some cable tidying up things

Could have gone slotted trunk but I really like the old school look of open cables, additionally it's only for me not work.





I think 230v side is nearly complete, loads of control wiring to go yet especially the wires to the Control screen.

 

[Dr.Al]

While I had the 0.25 mm nozzle in after doing the labels for the tap storage unit, I thought I'd take advantage of the potential extra accuracy and make some waste side jigs for the track saw:

I made them in big and small sizes so they clip together for easier storage.

In use:

Link (includes other kerf sizes): https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/119376-track-saw-waste-side-kerf-jigs

Also while I had the small nozzle in place, I thought I'd have a go at printing some labels:

They're to deal with this problem with Bisley drawers (yes, I know I could fix this with some thick card, but where's the fun in that?!)

The bigger ones are for small component drawers:

 

[badabec]

I use Design Spark Mechanical. Is there an easier way of adding text other than the laborious method of using the measurement function and adjusting the font and text etc?

 

[ajlelectronics]

I use Design Spark Mechanical. Is there an easier way of adding text other than the laborious method of using the measurement function and adjusting the font and text etc?

I don't believe so, without spending money on "add on" modules.

 

[badabec]

Hmm, a lot of money, thick end of £500 for one module or £750 for two.

 

[Dr.Al]

When I went through about 12 different CAD programs and compared them, that was one the main reasons Design Spark Mechanical got ruled out. So many things that I considered essential features were add-ons that cost a lot of money. I seem to remember that (at the time at least), even making a drawing and exporting it as a DXF was something you had to pay extra for

 

[AndersK]

So what package did you end up with?

I've been using Design spark a few months now and really like it but as you mentioned it has some shortages. I have used Space claim before when using Ansys software (which is what's under the hood of Design spark) so a little colored from that.

I have access to Inventor Pro, even home use license, as well as Fusion and Creo for commercial use but I don't want Autodesk products at home.

 

[mtt.tr]

Turbocad Is like that, to get a 3d filler you need the top package.

 

[Onoff]

I still can't really make the move away from AutoCAD! After 2 years of college training on it at C&G level it's really ingrained.

I've dabbled with early versions of Draftsight which were pure clones of AutoCAD. I made the switch from AutoCAD in about 30 seconds it was that close.

The latest version though imo has diverged away from AutoCAD to the point I struggle with Draftsight a little but am getting there.

One pita is incompatibility. I remember drawing a solid in Draftsight and AutoCAD throwing a hissy fit on editing after telling me "this product was created on a non Autodesk product" etc.

I was going to get my lad to school me on Fusion 360 but if that's going paid for looks like we both might learn a new package together!

 

[carbon]

Fusion 360 is still currently free for personal use

Fusion 360 free

 

[mtt.tr]

Fusion 360 is still currently free for personal use

Fusion 360 free

Limits you to 10 items you can stop one and allow another.

It's also lost features since I first started using it.

 

[Dr.Al]

So what package did you end up with?

A bit of a mix-and-match mess comprising Onshape, ZW3D Lite and CADQuery. If you really want to know why, grab yourself a cuppa and read on...

I didn't find anything that met all the requirements I had (at a price I could justify) and I spent a lot of time agonising over the options. There were some free ones that were rubbish (in my opinion, obviously), like DesignSpark, NaroCAD, NanoCAD Pro etc. There were some free ones that were good (FreeCAD mainly) and some free ones that were excellent (with caveats), in particular Onshape.

There were also some paid ones that were awful (especially Alibre Atom3D). I wouldn't touch Atom3D with a barge pole: it has no benefits compared to FreeCAD that I could see and once FreeCAD get the assembly thing sorted (which may be a while off yet), FreeCAD will be better. Alibre have made it clear (in emails to me) that there will never be the ability to do top-down design (designing parts based on other parts, rather than starting each part as an independent thing), which I see as an essential CAD feature. They want this to be a distinguishing feature of their more premium product (which I also tried, and the top-down design implementation was terrible ). Given that Atom3D is several hundred pounds, that's a massive waste of money.

Fusion 360 is very capable (although reducing in capability every time someone at Autodesk sneezes ) but there were a few things that put me off:

1. It's a bit quirky in that quite a few things work differently to other CAD systems. Get used to Fusion 360 and any other system will feel odd.
2. Draftsight. I used Draftsight for years and then Autodesk decided to muck about with licences and make it not free any more. Thankfully everything I did with it was DXF, which is a relatively open standard. They'll probably do it with Fusion 360 at some point. To keep access to your parametric models, you rely on Autodesk renewing your free licence.
3. 3D sketching seemed a bit c**p (this might have improved since I trialled the various CAD systems as it was several years ago).
4. Mesh import only really works if you buy the premium version (not that it's much better in other software).

The main problems were 1 & 2. I couldn't bring myself to learn something in detail that worked differently to most other tools and which Autodesk might pull the plug on at any point. It's worth noting that I really don't like the subscription model as a hobbyist, so if I used Fusion 360 it would have been the free version. The software is designed in such a way they can easily tweak what's available in the free version and that is definitely not a good thing.

Onshape is awesome and was the best (by a surprisingly wide margin) in my test of drawing a complicated part (comprised of lots of sketch, extrude, sketch, extrude, sketch extrude etc steps), then going back to an early sketch and changing all the dimensions. It has a very good scripting language for fancy stuff and makes top-down design work really well. The obvious disadvantages are:

1. All your projects are public (not that there's much chance anyone will ever find them amongst the thousands of public projects).
2. If Onshape pull the plug on the free version (shall we call it "doing an Autodesk"? ) then you'll lose access to your parametric models.

IronCAD INOVATE [sic] I didn't get very far with. I could get a trial of IronCAD, but the lower cost "INOVATE" [sic] one was described as having "a reduced feature set", but with no opportunity to try the reduced feature set version. Therefore I could get used to some feature in the trial version, pay for the lower cost version and find that the feature I used had disappeared. I didn't like that.

ZW3D Lite is not as powerful as Onshape and definitely not as good at the test of changing early sketches, although in my tests (and the use I've had since buying it) I never got to the point that I couldn't recover after a change. It did a lot better in that test than FreeCAD, which has a habit of falling over if you change an early sketch in a way it doesn't like. It lacks some features of the more premium version (ZW3D), but these differences were clear and I was able to get a trial of the Lite version: nothing concerned me too much. It wasn't cheap: I think I paid a bit under £1000 for the licence, but that's a one-off cost and I'm still using the same version quite a few years later. I don't get to upgrade to the latest version (I'd have to pay a few hundred pounds to upgrade), but I haven't felt the need to do so and am still quite content with my old version. Unlike subscription type software, I don't lose access to the software if I don't pay. The commercial version of Fusion 360 is (I think) about £450 a year, which would add up quickly.

I still use Onshape for some things (Onshape has a built in gear generator, more in the way of fancy assembly constraints & scripting is better in Onshape: ZW3D scripting is possible, but hard work). Where I really want to do stuff in a very scripty way, I use CADQuery by preference or occasionally OpenJSCAD (note the "J": I don't get on with the OpenSCAD language). Very occasionally I even open FreeCAD but mainly just out of curiosity to see how it has improved since last time I ran it or because it seems to load STEP files quite quickly. I also use NX occasionally, but only because it's what I've got on my work machine (I'm not a mechanical engineer, but I occasionally need to look at mechanical models at work and so have the software on my work PC). In my last job the same was true except it was SolidEdge instead of NX.

If anyone (hobbyist) asks me what CAD program to use, I recommend Onshape first and if they don't get on with that or can't abide public models for whatever reason, I recommend FreeCAD with a strong advisory to keep it up to date. I tell them to steer well clear of Atom 3D and DesignSpark and not to bother with NanoCAD Pro or NaroCAD. I also mention Fusion 360 and that it's very capable (if quirky) but they may end up locked in an ecosystem and having to pay £450 a year to keep accessing their models. Oh, and I tell them to buy a 3DConnexion Space Mouse (which works with most of the interactive CAD systems mentioned and all the ones I recommend)!

The final and probably most important bit of advice I try to give anyone who asks about 3D CAD is this: every time you finish a model (or a version of a model), regardless of which CAD system you use, export the project as a STEP file. That way you'll always be able to edit your old designs (albeit not parametrically), even if the system you use today goes kaput or gets Autodesked in some way or other.

If you're reading this sentence and also managed to read all the other sentences: well done! You've probably finished your cuppa, so go and get another one!

 

[Dr.Al]

Oh, it's probably worth noting that this was quite a few years ago (2018 or early 2019 at a guess). There are other options around now, e.g. I heard that Solidworks have started offering a personal use licence, so I'd definitely look at that if I were trying to choose now.