The New 3D Printing Thread

Personally I use 123D Design which was a free download, however the maker of that has discontinued support for it some time back, although the last version published still works fine if you can find it to download

That was replaced by 'TinkerCAD' which is (allegedly) as good and possibly better than 123D Design, but I can't comment on that, one of the big plus points is that it is a totally online product as it runs in a browser. It is also supposed to be very easy and intuitive to use. The only downsides are its not as powerful as some other options out there and of course I suppose if the company ever pulls support for it like they did the prior product as it runs on the net you could be screwed (one reason I've stuck with 123D. The link to the site is; https://www.tinkercad.com/

If you want a free downloadable option apparently the most recommended one is currently FreeCAD, however it is described as 'not as intuitive' as some products out there, although it is claimed to be very powerful. I can't really comment on this though as I've not tried it yet myself, you can get it here; https://www.freecadweb.org/

Let us know how you get on with it if you dive in Chris!


Cheers, Nigel