That said, I can get Fusion360 for free, and while I hate the fact that it's not open-source and that my files are hidden and locked away ond Autodesk's servers and that they can cancel my free "hobbyist" subscription on a whim, Fusion360 is so much easier and faster to use for my small weekend projects that I just cannot bring myself to go through the pain of learning how to avoid the random crashes of FreeCAD.
EDIT: if there is a donation page for FreeCAD, I am willing to pitch in.
There isn't a single donation page. One of the main developers, Yorik van Havre, has a Patreon [1], and there's a Liberapay [2]. I also just decided to make a Patreon [3] (I'm the sysadmin for the project as well as a developer.)
1. https://www.patreon.com/yorikvanhavre
In my case, FreeCAD just has to be better than OnShape, not Fusion, to get me to use it for 90% of my designs.
My biggest hope for F360 are: 1. 2D vector import to sculpt workflow, not just model. 2. Shared Parameters between documents in the same projects
I've had great results with their CAM as long as you have a good post processor.
I'm in a similar boat - I use OpenSCAD for tons of 3d-printing and laser-cut work (I even wrote a package manage for it - https://github.com/lostapathy/scad_bundler ). But as I've moved into subtractive manufacturing, I find myself using Fusion 360 for reasonable access to CAM tools. As you note, having that integrated is very compelling.
I absolutely agree. I'm especially interested to see the future of integrations with computational fluid dynamics & finite element analysis (OpenFOAM for the former, Calculix & Elmer for the latter.) For example, one user on the forum was able to simulate the multi-mode heat transfer of a hot metal cube in a wind tunnel (but unfortunately I can't seem to find the post!) Another was looking into integration with KiCAD to simulate the thermal behavior of custom boards.
It's the only program that I know of, capable of importing OpenSCAD files.
The interface is a little awkward and the icons quite obscure, but other than that it's really good!
One of the many improvements in this version was a complete overhaul of all the workbenches' icons to be aligned to the Tango Desktop Project [1], thanks to Alexander Gryson [2]. I think it helped a lot with the visual consistency, so big kudos to him.
Co2 Lasercutting and FDM 3d-printing is generally easier to get access to than CNC though.
I use FreeCAD in combination with OpenSCAD and cadquery for my 3d-printed projects and CNC milling. It's actually good enough for most hobbyist projects (anything in the range of <5k$).
The ability to model with CSG with OpenSCAD and BREP in a single package (thanks to the openscad plugin) allows the best of both worlds. The python scriptability with cadquery allows to generate complex parametric geometries that would be painful to even approach with a regular CAD package.
With constraint references and indirect formula references you can setup pretty robust parametric models that can be reused quite effectively.
FreeCAD has enormous potential.