This is one of those “it depends” questions, but I will test the waters anyway.
I have never gotten good enough with mechanical CAD such that it is easier to model on CAD vs a piece of graph paper. The problem is that I never make more than 1 of something. The time it takes me to render a simple project in CAD is multiple times longer than it takes to sketch it. I know it is my mech CAD skills holding me back. I never seem to get to the point [like PCB design] where it is easier to CAD.
To make things worse, my CNC has been down while I finish a new spindle driver, which is taking years to get right [too much pickleball]. That will soon be another post.
I see that SolidWorks has a $24-48/yr deal for makers. I currently use FreeCAD.
Does anyone who uses(d) FreeCAD think that SolidWorks is easier to learn?
My understanding is that these two programs are pretty similar and folks who know SolidWorks are pretty much able to transition to FreeCAD w/o difficulty, but of course SW has decades of UI work done on it and is more consistent).
Are you willing to consider a different tool?
The developer of Horizon EDA made:
which is notable to me for being the only traditional interactive 3D CAD program where I have successfully compleated the initial tutorial.
I haven’t touched SolidWorks for a few years now. It was in the “before times” so large grain of salt due here!
I think that over five years ago, SolidWorks was definitely easier to learn; learning SolidWorks actually helped me learn how to use FreeCAD more effectively. With the recent improvements in the past couple years, particularly improving the workflow in the FreeCAD sketcher, and the “MangoJelly” tutorials for FreeCAD, I don’t know whether that’s really the case any more. It might be a much closer comparison.
The number one thing I miss in FreeCAD from SolidWorks is 3D sketches. I’d love a nice parametric 3d sketch tool to create master wireframes from which to build features. Wireframing the outlines of a shape would give me a place to think through parameters before digging myself into and out of holes during iterative design.
I found the FreeCAD spreadsheet model to be a little more cumbersome than making parametric features in SolidWorks, but I’ve wholeheartedly adopted VarSets in FreeCAD, and I like them better than anything I saw in SolidWorks. I don’t know whether SolidWorks has anything like that experience now, and the FreeCAD spreadsheets went from fragile to reasonably solid, so even using spreadsheets I think that it’s probably a closer comparison today than it was back then.
I found SolidWorks to be really effective training in “save early, save often” because it crashed so much. I don’t know how stable current versions are now. I regularly have FreeCAD sessions that go for weeks, and it rarely crashes for me, even using development builds.
Experience in SolidWorks really helped me frame FreeCAD’s communications around the “topological naming problem”. I was able to articulate from experience that I’d experienced breaking and repairing topological naming in SolidWorks, and that what FreeCAD was doing was finally starting to work on heuristics that would substantially reduce the problem, but that heuristics always have failure cases, including in commercial software. I think that five-ish years ago it was a lot easier to fix topologically broken models in SolidWorks than in FreeCAD. I think that it’s a lot closer today, but my gut feeling from my memory of chasing fixes through the design tree is that SolidWorks then compared to FreeCAD today, SolidWorks is probably still at least a smidge ahead. An old memory though…
+1 for the MangoJelly Solutions FreeCAD tutorials. FreeCAD 1.0 was a huge step forward, and FreeCAD 1.1 added some ease of use stuff, too. I’m looking forward to 1.2. Not sure if it is out yet. Disclaimer: I’ve never used SolidWorks. But I have used AutoDesk Fusion. Fusion is probably a better UI but I don’t like how they force everything into the cloud where they can at some future time hold my data hostage, or who knows—maybe even use my models to train AI? No stank you. I’m very happy with FreeCAD.
Frankly, I think all CAD software is going to be hard at first, but the more you use it the better you’ll get. There are just so many tutorials on FC now, that I prefer it.
I currently use SolidWorks 2022 at work and I love it. I have used pretty much all the CADD software on the market in the last 42 years of doing CADD. I also use FreeCAD and to me, it is pretty much the same as SolidWorks. For me, the hardest part is switching my mind off when using FreeCAD because creating in FreeCAD is different than SolidWorks. The good thing with FreeCAD is that you can bring in SolidWorks files.
My manager uses FreeCAD along with the MCP (Model Control Protocol). You can use Claude to help generate models. I don’t know if SolidWorks can do that.
To me, FreeCAD is quite powerful and bet of all, it is FREE. If you are a heavy user for your employment, then SolidWorks is the way to go for sure…but the price is a little hefty.
Back in 2010 I was able to purchase a Educational Version of SolidWorks for $100/year. It was a full version, the only caveat was that it put a little “graduation cap” next to models and it you opened up an educational version of the model in regular commericial version of SolidWorks, it would popup with a reminder telling you that you are opening an education version of the model.
The prerequisite to getting it is that you have to be a student. At the time I wasn’t but my youngest son was still in High School so I used his student ID to get it and yes, I taught him how to use it.
I had spent a few months learning Fusion 360 during the pandemic when an instructor offered weekly classes for the woodworking group I was a part of. I was able to get F360 running on Linux and it was a fun experience and got me away from OpenSCAD’s coder CAD method.
Then AutoDesk did 2 things, they did a couple of minor updates which I’d not noticed which prevented it from running on Linux. But what was worst, they changed the files so they weren’t compatible with previous versions. I’m talking about a X.XXY a 3rd level revision number change meant if you didn’t upgrade then you could not share files bi-directionally with those who did. That’s when I also found out the updates broke Linux capability.
It really pissed me off and then they announced changes to the licensing and the elimination of STL export of their free and educational versions.
I started looking for another CAD program which could run on Linux. I had tried FreeCAD a number of years earlier and couldn’t figure it out so I looked at VariCAD which I’d used a decade earier but their license turned more rental like Fusion 360 was headed. I’d met someone who mentioned membership with the Experimental Aircraft Association(EAA?) got you a free membership to SolidWorks so I checked it out and they did not have Linux support.
The forums were buzzing with the news of Autodesk changing licensing for Fusion 360 and many brought up the fiasco of EagleCAD which was a cross platform EDA tool for PCB design. Many of them brought up FreeCAD so I PM’ed a few and asked about it and mentioned my previous experience and they all said, “try the beta which is near release, it’s a far better UI experience and you won’t be disappointed.” I did, I wasn’t and it’s been getting better all the time.
The rental format for CAD just seems wrong since it generates engineering artifacts people value and having to pay for permission years later to open your file, which might not work, seems like businesses would be fighting this but they don’t.
A lot of people sleep on Alibre Atom3D for CAD. It’s around $200 for a lifetime license. You get updates for the first year, and after that, you can keep using the version you have forever. Right now it’s 20% off. 30 day trial if you want to handle the whip.
I bought a copy for my retired engineer father because he was struggling with Fusion 360, and he seems to get along with Atom3D just fine. There’s no CAM built in, but for CAD it’s surprisingly capable. You can model parts, build assemblies, and create drawings. Overall, it’s a pretty robust package for the price.
Another option that’s completely free is Solid Edge Community Edition. I haven’t personally used it, but it’s been around for many years and might be worth checking out.
Note that there are CAM options bundled w/ various price levels of Alibre, including a re-badged MeshCAM in Alibre Workshop CAD/CAM (or at least that’s how Carbide 3D lists it in the shop — ob. discl., I work for Carbide 3D and we bundle it w/ Nomads and sell it as well).
@WillAdams Your are correct. I meant that there wasn’t anything built into the CAD application itself. I suppose there are a number of third-party CAM options one could use. I own a Shapeoko 3 and always forget about Carbide Create. Does that work on other generic grbl machines?