You Should Learn Basic CAD

3D printing is growing in popularity but a lot of people are just printing things they find on sites like Printables. There are tons of useful things that other people have shared, but I think people overestimate how difficult it would be for them to design their own objects to print to solve their own problems.

FreeCAD, as the name implies, is a free and open source CAD app. The UX can be rough around the edges, but it’s plenty capable for hobbyist usage (all I’m doing). MangoJelly’s YouTube tutorials are fantastic and you’ll be creating original designs in no time. For simple objects, you could get by with Tinkercad for an even easier entry point, but I might caution against that except for the simplest of designs.

Tinkercad design — Electronic Screwdriver holder I made with Tinkercad

As the image suggests, things can become a bit sloppy in Tinkercad. I could recreate this in FreeCAD in a similar amount of time and have a much more refined and flexible design file to work with. But if you want to dip your toes and have something dead simple to make, Tinkercad might give you the confidence to make it a reality (and hopefully jump to something like FreeCAD for future designs).

Regardless of what CAD software you use, it’s worth picking up a caliper. You often need to have your design work with something that exists in the physical space – a caliper is the best way to take measurements that you’ll use in your designs.

Unless you’re a machinist, a cheap caliper will be plenty accurate. I have a $5 plastic vernier caliper I have on hand for quick measurements and a mid-range dial caliper when I need sub mm accuracy (the digital calipers are accurate enough but I don’t want the hassle of batteries). A 3D printed radius gauge can also help out.

Here’s a few things I’ve designed and made recently:

drawer divider — A subdivider for my parts drawer, doubling the storage spaces

This bathroom heater’s knob was slick, making it difficult to use after washing our hands etc – replacement is much easier to grip

spool helper — A part that fits snugly in my zing-it spools and has slots to secure the loose ends

All of these were very quick designs in FreeCAD – I probably spent more time printing them than designing them (all but the exhaust adapter had 2-3 iterations). The feeling of going from a mere thought to a physical object that solves a real problem for you is hard to beat and I hope you give it a shot, especially if you already have a 3D printer!