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  2. [SergentEng] Designing for 3D printing

Re: [SergentEng] Designing for 3D printing

Mike Conder
 

I use SketchUp, a free 3D program now owned by Google.  But I had a hard time until I realized that SU, until CAD, worked better by starting with large shapes and removing "material" to make the item, as opposed to making shapes and adding them together as I normally did with CAD.  Either way works but the "removal" or sculpting method can be a lot faster ... especially with the coupler gauges I designed.

I also did  lot of Youtube videos from a site called "mastersketchup.com."  The owner also has a lot of non-video tips.  I did most of the relevant tutorials, even the ones building a shed, because the skills transfer to model parts even though the subjects usually don't.

Shapeways has a number of tutorials as well, so one needs to pay a lot of attention to the minimum thickness limits of the selected materials.

Mike Conder

On Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 9:55 AM, William Lugg luggw1@... [SergentEng] <SergentEng@...> wrote:
 

Just out of curiosity, can you point me to a good tutorial or two about
designing parts to be printed in 3D by Shapeways? I've got some items I
think might be interesting to try, but haven't a clue how to get started.

I am a Linux user and have been fiddling with with FreeCAD a bit, but
applying it to the construction of a model of a real part has so far
eluded me. I also have the professional version of QCAD available, but
I'm pretty sure that's limited to 2D work.

Thanks.
Bill Lugg
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