What Design Software do You Use?

[goofyman23]

Are there any free or cheap-ish programs that I could tinker in? I'm trying to design a trigger, for example.

Thanks!

[Joshk]

Hey Goofy, I am very much an amateur... maybe I am giving myself too much credit with that label, haha. I started off playing around with Tinkercad.com. It is free software that allows you to build with preset shapes. It's pretty intuitive and good to get used to a design environment, but it is extremely limited for detailed work, although you would be surprised what you can do by adding or subtracting the right shapes. Since then I have been trying to learn FreeCad which gives you a lot more freedom, but has a steep learning curve (like most CAD in my limited experience). There are a lot of tutorials on YouTube which helps.

Both are free.

[goofyman23]

Hey Goofy, I am very much an amateur... maybe I am giving myself too much credit with that label, haha. I started off playing around with Tinkercad.com. It is free software that allows you to build with preset shapes. It's pretty intuitive and good to get used to a design environment, but it is extremely limited for detailed work, although you would be surprised what you can do by adding or subtracting the right shapes. Since then I have been trying to learn FreeCad which gives you a lot more freedom, but has a steep learning curve (like most CAD in my limited experience). There are a lot of tutorials on YouTube which helps.

Both are free.

Oh cool, I'll definitely take a look at Tinkercad. Googling "free" sketches me out lol.

[Joshk]

Oh cool, I'll definitely take a look at Tinkercad. Googling "free" sketches me out lol.

It's a good place to start if you've never interacted with CAD, but you'll most likely quickly want a more capable program. Once you grow out of it you'll both appreciate and hate how much freedom a real CAD program gives you.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[Rainmaker]

Several of us on here use Fusion360. Excellent program. Very intuitive and versatile. The basic version is free. I personally have no reasons to use any other CAD software, and don't feel limited at all. Granted, I'm mostly a hobbyist, but I've been able to design some really intricate stuff with it.

Another one to try is OnShape. It's cloud based, and you can use it from a web browser. You can run it on almost any device since all the computing power is on the web. It does have some limitations, but still very good.