Wanted to share this since this was a long Project. Since Autodesk started changing Fusions functionality, from limiting active projects, to changing their terms of service. Since I need a CAD tool for my 3D Printable designs, I started migrating to a new cross platform CAD tool. That happened to be FreeCAD.
Learning FreeCAD wasn’t easy, but was well worth my time. And after slowly pecking at it for 11 months, I was able to re-build every design I made (that I cared about).
I’ve made my 3D Printable designs available on my GitHub if you are interested: https://github.com/the16bitgamer/16BitVirtualStudiosDesigns
When I first started working with 3d modelling (for 3d printed parts), I followed everyone’s advice and got a trial of Fusion. Luckily, I didn’t use it much and when I came back to it, my trial was over. I did not want to use a hobbyist license, just to have things change - so went looking for FOSS alternatives. OpenScad made my brain hurt, but then I found FreeCAD. Definately hard to learn, and for someone new to CAD design - I am learning very slowly.
I watched a ton of videos, but still struggle. My saving grace was that I found the official discord. The users on the discord server can be super helpful with learing the nuance of the platform. Several times I posted a file and askded for help and had an answer within an hour. In fact, I just submitted a screenshot of my sketch with dimensions and someone went ot the trouble of recreating it and fixing my problem…so I recommend you join the server if you are struggling. Link below:
https://discord.gg/uh85ZRNcfk
I taught myself freecad several years ago before discord took off and the curve is pretty steep I agree. Some things aren’t intuitive and version differences can be frustrating when watching videos.