CAD Class Request or Recommendations

DMS General
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I’ve always wanted to learn how to design products on the computer using CAD or other design software. Is there anyone willing to walk me through the basics or give me recommendations on good videos to watch? I’m definitely more of a hands-on learner and have had great experience learning from other members at DMS.

I usually draw out designs of products I want to make or have a vision for, and if I’m being honest my drawing skill is a solid 5/10. I’d love to have a more professional and clean way of presenting my ideas and designs.

Thanks!

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Learning to open the program, design a simple mostly box-like part, and get that exported to 3D print or whatever is a couple hours of work. Their are a million youtube videos on it, I’ve watched some of Lars Christensen stuff and it’s been good enough for what I needed to do.

The main issue today is what CAD program to start learning. It used to be Fusion 360, but the licensing for that became very anti-user (pro-money for AutoCAD though). The good news is if you request it you can get a 1 year license for Solidworks by being a DMS member, I’d recommend looking into that as the sky is limit for what you can do with it.

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I actually took a Blender class at DMS yesterday! Although from my understanding, that isn’t usually considered a CAD software?

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Please excuse my lack of knowledge lol… my background is neither in design or engineering. However, I’ve always had a desire to learn how to use design software. I just don’t know where to even start.

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No worries, let’s start with step 1. What do you want to do? That is going to really drive what path.

Blender is great for 3D modeling. You can output a STL file, and 3D print it. However it’s not exact if you’re needing something with specific dimensions. A 1” cube will have scaling issues from my experience. Blender is best though if scaling isn’t a major issue and you’re wanting something more organic in look.

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I agree with this 100%. For renders of parts, Blender is the way to go.

What I do with CAD is designing things to be manufactured in the real world (prototype-makery-things). So for me, I care about can I export to 3D Printing stuff easily, and can the CAD program do machining tool paths for example. For that, the best option (and free to boot) is the Solidworks 1year renewable license through DMS.

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There’s two main things I usually design and that’s either furniture or room layouts. Pretty simple stuff but both do require specific dimensions.

Essentially, I want to be able to design something on the computer and then tell someone to build it out lol

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Do you need 3D layouts or are you just talking like 2D top down stuff?

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Sketchup is free and is pretty simple to learn. I haven’t used it in a while but when I did it was just usefull enough

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So the goto previously was Fusion360. You could do your dimensions, render out a beautiful photo, and hand someone a detailed cut list / exploded view. As mentioned that has gone the route of paid license.

Sketchup is great for dimensions and basic views (last I used it)

Blender is great to have a visual like for an interior design client, but dimensions may be off if you have someone build it.

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I think 2D top down would suffice!

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Thanks so much for your help! I heard of SketchUp a while back when I was working for a real estate investor and flipping houses. I’ll have to look into it again.

Learning just the basics of Blender yesterday was mind-blowing. There’s so much you can do, and I can definitely tell it’ll take a ton of time for me to really pick it up and get efficient at designing anything on there

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I still enjoy Fusion 360. It is still free for everything you will most likely need and make. An incredible quantity of videos are avail and a large pool of users. It does not have the hardware requirements of Solidworks (which is an industry favorite). Many woodworkers moved to it from SketchUp. One of the powerful features is it’s parametric capabilities. You set variables for wood thickness, dimensions… Then you can change those variables and it updates the model. This applies to 2d and 3d models.

Blender is powerful - very organic to use. But it’s difficult to export with specific scale/sizing.

Tinkercad is free and very quick. Not nearly as powerful, but it makes it up for speed of design. Not really suited to furniture.

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