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Re:FreeCAD 0.17 “Roland” released by donquichotte on Monday April 09, 2018 @07:18AM (#16792014)
I applaud the FreeCAD team for their efforts and hope it will become to 3D mechanical CAD what KiCAD has become for PCB design and schematic capture.

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.

Re:FreeCAD 0.17 “Roland” released by kwk1 on Monday April 09, 2018 @07:25AM (#16792045)
> 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

2. https://liberapay.com/FreeCAD/

3. https://www.patreon.com/kkremitzki

Re:FreeCAD 0.17 “Roland” released by StavrosK on Monday April 09, 2018 @11:32AM (#16793872)
I am of a similar opinion, however I find myself using OnShape more and more for simple projects just because Fusion360 isn't available on Linux and I don't want to reboot just to design something.

In my case, FreeCAD just has to be better than OnShape, not Fusion, to get me to use it for 90% of my designs.

Re:FreeCAD 0.17 “Roland” released by abakker on Monday April 09, 2018 @01:31PM (#16795057)
Agree on F360. And, for what it's worth, it does support python scripting as well.

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.