seppburgh2
New Member
This year marks the forty-second Christmas my wife and I will celebrate together. She has chosen to make the occasion memorable by gifting me a 3-D printer. I have selected the ANYCUBIC Photon Mono M7 PRO 14K Resin 3D Printer for Santa’s delivery. With the gift arranged, my next thought is determining how to begin designing objects for printing.
My dream application is to build railroad cars and buildings not available, specifically the Public Service of New Jersey 2600 series streetcar (https://www.njerhs.org/public-service-trolley-car-2651). An ambitious goal, so I need to start simply with locomotive detail parts, scenery details, and simple buildings like relay shelters.
As a reference to what I am looking to do, see the Model Railroad Hobbyist (MRH) April 2022 article 3D Printing a U30CG.
To get there, I need a design tool and a slicer that has an easy learning curve and provides mirroring capabilities (design the left side, and the software generates the right side). What CAD software are folks using for modeling design work?
After researching various model RR forms, I have compiled the following list of possibilities: Fusion 360 (the free version, Fusion for Personal Use), OpenSCAD, 3D Builder, SketchUp, and TinkerCAD.
For slicers, there are Blender, CURA, and CHITUBOX.
So what do folks have on their workbench for this new 3D printing modeling world?
Footnote: For the U30CG print project, the author used Autodesk Inventor for design/CAD. However, Autodesk is over $ 200 per month and is way out of my budget. I need a lower-cost alternative. I am cross-posting the question here to reach a broader audience, as I am starting from zero in learning design/CAD. Thanks for your understanding.
My dream application is to build railroad cars and buildings not available, specifically the Public Service of New Jersey 2600 series streetcar (https://www.njerhs.org/public-service-trolley-car-2651). An ambitious goal, so I need to start simply with locomotive detail parts, scenery details, and simple buildings like relay shelters.
As a reference to what I am looking to do, see the Model Railroad Hobbyist (MRH) April 2022 article 3D Printing a U30CG.
To get there, I need a design tool and a slicer that has an easy learning curve and provides mirroring capabilities (design the left side, and the software generates the right side). What CAD software are folks using for modeling design work?
After researching various model RR forms, I have compiled the following list of possibilities: Fusion 360 (the free version, Fusion for Personal Use), OpenSCAD, 3D Builder, SketchUp, and TinkerCAD.
For slicers, there are Blender, CURA, and CHITUBOX.
So what do folks have on their workbench for this new 3D printing modeling world?
Footnote: For the U30CG print project, the author used Autodesk Inventor for design/CAD. However, Autodesk is over $ 200 per month and is way out of my budget. I need a lower-cost alternative. I am cross-posting the question here to reach a broader audience, as I am starting from zero in learning design/CAD. Thanks for your understanding.
