3DPrinting
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
The r/functionalprint community is now located at: or !functionalprint@fedia.io
There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml
Rules
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No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
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Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
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No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
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No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
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Do not create links to reddit
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If you see an issue please flag it
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No guns
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No injury gore posts
If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe/ may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is 
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Is this worth trying to learn if I can already fiddle around in blender? I have already given it a go a while ago but couldnt really get easily started so I dropped it.
CAD is a very different workflow than 3D modeling like blender. Someone could probably explain it better than me but think of CAD as being for engineering and something like blender being for artists. Thats not to say you cant do art in a CAD program or engineering in a modeling program its just a different tool for a different job.
I think I can explain it.
CAD tools are focused on parametric design, meaning you have parameters that effect how the model is shaped.
It's very useful for creating a product. Let's say you made an object 10mm too short, and a whole bunch of other features are based on that measurement. If you update it to add 10mm, if you're using the tool correct, those features built on top will adjust and accept the change.
If you do that in a tool like blender, any feature based off of that incorrect measurement will have to be painstakingly updated one at a time.
So it's basically a question of "does your design have/need dependancies?"
Ok that makes sense, I will give it another go. Thank you.
Good luck!
Depends on what your goals are. Despite my inability to grasp Blender, it's a great piece of software for those organic and artistic designs. And to be fair, it can do a bit of CAD work with an add-on. But it soon hits a limit for that kind of work.
But not everyone can "see" the different type of workflow and end results that each type of software is good at. I certainly cannot see that Blender doughnut well enough to make it. Even with my hand being held in the video tutorials. But I can take that same doughnut and turn it into a torque converter for an automatic transmission. Go figure....
Still, I keep trying to make that Blender doughnut despite my lack of success so far. And I encourage you to keep trying to make something with CAD. Don't give up. We're going to win someday!
I do some STL editing for 3D prints in blender, which I don't see myself changing, but I also design some cases, organizers, token holders etc for boardgames, for which it sounds like CAD would be a better fit. And yeah, as I said i did try it before but hit a wall and went with blender which I was more familiar with. Did the job alright, but perhaps was not the optimal way. I'll give it another spin with a different focus now.