this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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There are no good open source CAD systems at all.
For electrical engineering there is KiCad, which is pretty good overall. Only reason I'm still using proprietary software is because I'd have to recreate my libraries and it will be a huge pita.
For mechanical design there is FreeCad, which is usable for simple geometries, but if you come from a proprietary CAD software you may find it lacking.
I got into the 3D printing hobby a few months ago and FreeCAD is pretty much useless. I can be more productive by writing JavaScript code with Three.js library, lol.
For that you can also use Blender
Not really. Blender is NOT a CAD. It doesn't ensure that your bodies are solid, it doesn't provide any analysis tools, it doesn't support working with blueprints/sketches, it's not parametric, etc. Basically, it doesn't do anything CAD at all.
Yeah, it's a great tool for the job. Not as good as Zbrush, but I used it for print prep several times and it just has all the tools you might need.