Announced here:
first episode of Helpdesk Live! — and we’ll be doing a giveaway for either a free license upgrade or free maintenance.
Friday, December 12th
10 AM Mountain • 9 AM Pacific • 11 AM Central • 12 PM Eastern
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Seems I am a day late and a dollar short. Just now seeing this. Oh well. Glad to see there are help videos out there for us that need them. Thank you.
That pretty much describes how I feel about 3D in general.
I couldn’t begin to count the number of 3D CAD programs and tutorials I’ve tried, and they’ve never been a good fit for one reason or other.
The MeshCAM folks have a list:
and I’ve tried pretty much all of them except for MOI3D, as well as a few others which are not listed, even buying a license for:
but some aspect of usage always derails things:
- a mouse is required and I spend too many hours at a desk for my day job at the one desk in the house which is set up for using a mouse (I prefer to use a tablet/stylus, yes, I should try MOI3D)
- some technical issue crops up — I was doing quite well w/ Alibre Atom 3D when it was first announced until I tried to use the spline tool — which simply didn’t work, and when I asked after why on their forums, there was no response (until almost a year later when it was revealed that I needed to delete the preferences)
- I get frustrated with not being able to just solve things mathematically — apparently FreeCAD added “varset” in a recent version which should address this
- I really should be working on other things…
I just got a 3D printer and hope that I didn’t waste my money and my time with this one. I bought a Mecreator2 3D printer. The table is small and I see that I will be limited to the size of projects I actually can print. I didn’t get a manual with it so I didn’t know what all I needed with it as far as the programs go. I decided, after reading many of our posts in here, to download Alibre Atom3D for the designing CAD program and I downloaded Prusa G-code Viewer for the slicer. I had to do a lot of researching and reading to figure out what I needed for this printer work.
It was a bit exhausting, but I think I have what I need to make this printer work. Now just need to get some filament in order to print anything at this point. I got the printer used for $130. I hope the purchase was worth it. Once I get to understanding 3D printing more, then I probably wouldn’t mind upgrading to a better, more capable 3D printer that won’t break the bank.
3D printers, even when small can be quite useful — see
Although this is mainly a cnc forum there are a plethora of members that have 3D printers. Feel free to start a specific thread if needed. There are several really good discussions already on the use of them and how they complement our cnc process’s. I searched the model you bought and it seems like a solid starter machine (as it was advertised).
I have not had the time to do very much 3D modeling myself for my cnc or 3D printer yet. Just simple stuff, I looked at a bunch of the 3D programs out there and started with Tinkercad. I has allowed me to learn the process and understanding of 3D modeling better.
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