What design software do you use?

[RenoQueen]

Keen to hear if any community members can recommend programs or apps that they use to draw quick and easy floorplans.

[MikeTNZ]

MitchellMc,

Thanks for the suggestion of Tinkercad, I'll look into this.

Pretty much when I design stuff, wether it be wood, steel or electrical, it'll be done on a white-board, no need for 3D stuff.

Thanks mate.

Mike T.

[MikeTNZ]

Nice work.

But isn't the timber called Rimu?

[Splodg]

Hi Mike TNZ!

Yes you are right the timber is spelt Rimu!

Us Brits struggle with the lingo sometimes oops!

🤔

[MitchellMc]

Excellent work on the name tag holder @Splodg! I'm sure they'll get some fantastic use out of it for many years to come. Many thanks for sharing.

After our conversation, I managed to track down an image of the set-piece my father built. I've looked several times before and could never find any recordings that included it. Not a great image, but enough to start working with.

Mitchell

 

[Mitchell2]

Is that the play school rolling ball calendar? 

[Mitchell2]

 

 

 your going to make that rolling ball calendar in real life for me?

[woodenwookie]

For those of you who design your projects what software if any do you use?

I used to use AutoDesk Fusion 360 but I'm moving to FreeCAD which is open source and almost on par with Fusion 360.

I've seen a few plans on here which are clearly done in SketchUp but I also see some plans that look like just normal 2D CAD images.

I'll tell you why I used to use Fusion 360 and why I ditched it.

I used to use Fusion 360 because I found it so much easier and more powerful than SketchUp. Using parameters I could design a woodworking project and if I needed to change something I'd just change the parameter and the entire drawing would change. To do the same thing in SketchUp at the time required so much effort to fix everything back up.

I stopped using Fusion 360 and moved to FreeCAD 1.0 because I get the feeling AutoDesk are manoeuvring things to remove the hobbyist licence. The standard licence is far too expensive to be worth it for my needs and FreeCAD is free due to being open source.

FreeCAD is a parametric editor so it was more similar to the workflow I had in Fusion 360. I had to learn some workflow techniques specific to FreeCAD but in many ways I like FreeCAD more than even Fusion 360.

I tried SketchUp but I didn't like it at all. It seemed more hassle than it was worth to me. I'm not calling it a bad product, it was just bad for ME.

What software do you use specifically and why?

[MitchellMc]

Interesting topic @woodenwookie. I use Tinkercad because it is the simplest and most user-friendly way to get started with 3d design. It's used by school children to encourage them to learn about 3d objects, and it has the ability to convert the file to something which can be sent straight to a 3d printer.

Although it is not very powerful and lacks many functionalities, it is very quick to use and handles basic 3d tasks exceptionally well. I find it the best way to convey something here, which would be hard to describe in words.

Whether it's laying out a deck or designing a Carnival Cruiseliner, it's my go-to software.

Mitchell
 

 

[woodenwookie]

That is an Autodesk product if I recall.

Those reasons are one of the reasons I moved to FreeCAD as well. Fusion 360 does 3D modelling and can export to 3D printers as well. As FreeCAD is pretty much feature for feature with Fusion 360, that was the major deciding factor for my move away from Fusion.

I do like the idea of circuit design with TinkerCAD though. I might explore that when I want to work out something along those lines.