Which 3D CAD's do you use for 3D print and/or CNC designs?

[RC]

Getting ready for my M3D printer to arrive after New Year and though I'd ask what CAD's do you use to draw up the 3D models you either print or CNC machine?

I've been looking around the Internet for possible alternatives and the short list of free ones seems to be:
- Autodesk 123D Design + Meshmixer
- DesignSpark Mechanical + ???
- Trimble SketchUp possibly?
(- Possibly Dassault DraftSight, but the 3D drawing in it seems awfully complex)
- Blender?

And then of course you have a bunch of commercial ones, but at this time I don't think I'm ready to drop CAD sort of money to print things for myself.

I can draw reasonably well in SketchUp and with some thought I could probably learn 123D Design or DesignSpark rather easily and the classic AutoCAD like programs just do my head in like they always have with their 70's user interface and console command line.

If I've understood the basic process correctly you need to first create the 3D model in one of the CAD's, then export the model to STL and then push it through a slicing application like Meshmixer or Meshlab before sending the sliced model to the printer right?

Any suggestions which applications I should begin learning and what sort of workflow would be best practice for 3D printing?

 

[duburban]

Rhino for 3d, cad for 2. Don't trust sketch up

 

[Massemannen]

I use Autodesk Inventor when doing CAD, Autodesk 3dsmax for visualisation. Printing on a Makerbot Replicator 2  [smile]

 

[jaguar36]

I use Autodesk Inventor when doing CAD, Autodesk 3dsmax for visualisation. Printing on a Makerbot Replicator 2  [smile]

That's like $10k worth of software right there.

 

[Massemannen]

Yeah in the US, the exact same software cost more here in Europe  [mad]
The 3dsmax licens is 8500$ alone from resellers...

 

[RC]

As much as I'd love to get all the fancy professional stuff I'm kinda limiting myself to something that can cost max. about 500€ and ideally it would be free for personal use like the 123D or basic SketchUp. I do this stuff as a hobby and don't sell anything I make so investing 10k€ on software is out of the question.

 

[Michael Kellough]

Check out Shark FX.

http://www.punchsoftware.com/specialoffers/sharkcadfx/index.html

 

[duburban]

As much as I'd love to get all the fancy professional stuff I'm kinda limiting myself to something that can cost max. about 500€ and ideally it would be free for personal use like the 123D or basic SketchUp. I do this stuff as a hobby and don't sell anything I make so investing 10k€ on software is out of the question.

I've been using rhino free for a few years now.

 

[rmwarren]

I've used sketchup with the stl plugin and repitor (sp?) with the slicr plugin, gotten decent results. All free.

RMW

 

[RONWEN]

Solidworks is expensive but hard to beat.

 

[RC]

As much as I'd love to get all the fancy professional stuff I'm kinda limiting myself to something that can cost max. about 500€ and ideally it would be free for personal use like the 123D or basic SketchUp. I do this stuff as a hobby and don't sell anything I make so investing 10k€ on software is out of the question.

I've been using rhino free for a few years now.

Is that a product from www.rhino3d.com? I couldn't find but a 90-day trial version from there?

 

[Tim Brennan]

Rhino for mac. Its free (windows version is not that expensive) and the support forum is good.

Autodesk Alias is probably the best but its expensive.

Solidworks also a good choice.

My criteria for choosing the right CAD package in order are

1 price of licence
2 training availability/affordability
3 support
4 personal preference