alt Hacker NewsRecently one of the magnet holders for my window shutters broke, and I thought I'd take a crack at designing a replacement to 3D Print. I'd never designed anything in CAD software before, so I had no real reference.
I found FreeCAD extremely easy to use and intuitive. I watched a couple videos and followed-along with the tutorials, then started on my own item. It's a relatively simple 3-part component. I took measurements with digital calipers, and in a few hours was printing the first prototype.
A couple prototypes later (small measurement adjustments to account for plastic shrinkage, etc), I had the final model. Replaced all of the magnet holders since they were sure to go soon, too.
I had fun, and finally used my 3D printer for something "real". Pretty cool.
Replies
A fun thing to do is take a picture and import it. Then you can trace it!
This is best done on some kind of grid background but having a ruler (or two) is usually enough.
One suggestion, print one or two layers first to check the fit. Iterate with that before you print the whole thing.
Another helpful thing is to start drawing things parametrically. This should be familiar to programmers. You're using variables and you want to design things primarily through relationships. This becomes a huge unlock because scaling your parts becomes much easier
It was Onshape for me, but the same idea. The concepts take just a few hours to "click" (the idea that you're stacking changes chronologically, which is different from e.g. layers in photo editing), but then you can suddenly build like 80% of all tools and mechanisms that you've ever seen. Yes, slowly and usually using less efficient tools and approaches, but you can make most things look and work right SOMEHOW.
for incredibly simple parts that i can describe using measurements, i've had a lot of fun pointing a high-power ai at openscad and letting it iterate through making the design for me
it's still tough to turn it into something i can then keep fiddling with in freecad though
put on "tron: ares" in the background to fully appreciate the model designing something that will be 3d-printed :)
I had a hard time but I didn’t start with the tutorial first.
But once I saw their “philosophy” as it were, everything became so much easier.
Learning to design parts was a huge "unlock" for me.
Wasn't just printing other people's designs.
Great feeling to measure and design something then have it fit perfectly.
That is the spirit! A friend recommended me to buy a Bambu P2S: there are parts I want to print and I don't want to model then send them to have them printed, nor to bother my friend all the time. Funnily enough I've got magnets falling too: for an alarm system on the doors/windows and they don't hold well anymore after the years. Then my car's radar detection device (fully legal) doesn't fit nicely in the phone holder I use to that effect: I want it a specific angle (I want it both inclined and facing towards me a bit). So I'll model those and just print them. There are a few things like that where I keep thinking: "If I had a 3D printer, I'd just print a part".
Most importantly: I've got a 11 y/o and I think it's cool for the kid to see how it works.
Already watch a few vids. Doesn't look too hard for simple things.
I had the opposite experience. Creating the parts was easy with some tutorials but when I went to the assembly step it failed horribly. There are different plugins/ways how you can do it but none of them worked and the console solely gave cryptic error messages. I gave up and used pen and paper. :(