What is Reddit's opinion of OpenSCAD?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

yes sure you find this at

http://openscad.org/advent-calendar-2021/but it is 3mf (the superior format to stl )

also you find this and additional bonus files at https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/91376

I bought a Roland MDX-40A. A nice and very precise machine, that come with housing and has a rather large work area (30 x 30 cm). It also comes ready assembled and ready to go. At $8000 it is rather expensive, but it is easy to start with, as it comes with all control software and a quite simple to use CAM software package. That is not the very best CAM package, but it is easy to start with, and you can switch to some better CAM package that produce g-code later.

That machine is not able to mill metals, not even soft ones, so if that is what you want, it is not for you. My decision was that milling metals was not worth it, because in addition to being expensive, metal milling is also quite noisy, and it would annoy the neighbours, since my workshop is in the cellar of an apartment block. Wood and plastics and vax milling is considerably less noisy, and is not a problem.

My main guide was Michal Zalewskis Guerrilla guide to CNC machining, mold making, and resin casting. That is a very good guide if you have no experience, and I learnt enough vocabulary to find help elsewhere by reading that. It is very focused on machining molds for casting robot parts in plastic, but the part on CNC machining and CAD/CAM gives a very good intro, even if your intend to use the CNC machine for other purposes. It does not mention anything about metals at all.

For CAD, I have mainly been using openscad. In most CAD software, you design your parts in a GUI, but in openscad you write the spec as text, composing solids into what shapes you want. For a programmer like me, that was much more close to home than typical CAD programs.

My solution today was, uhhhh, weird.

I couldn't be bothered to write any intelligent code to solve part two, so instead I used 3D CAD software!

• Wrote some Python code (openscad-generate.py) to generate some OpenSCAD code based on the challenge input
  • This made liberal use of nested union(), difference(), translate() and cube() functions
• Ran this code in OpenSCAD and exported the resultant model as an STL
• Imported this STL file into Blender and used the 3D-Print Toolbox addon to calculate the total volume of the object
• Typed this number into the AoC website because Blender wouldn't let me copy-paste it

Witness the weirdness for yourself at this here link: https://github.com/codemicro/adventOfCode/tree/master/challenges/2021/22-reactorReboot (includes screenshots)

You could use python, but it would be like re-inventing the wheel. There are some libraries, but usually more trouble than it’s worth. I do have a few simple python scripts to help manage gcode (headers footers timings for toolpaths etc) but I would use something else to generate the actual code.

If you look up some examples, the “code” is basically just a list of coordinates in order. The machine just follows them step by step. Open Scadwould be the most analogous to a programming environment with modules and loops etc but most people design stuff in 3D using something like Fusion 360 then generate toolpaths from those models using other software (or different modules in the same software).

Sorry, I missed your post until now. Yes. I'll post the OpenSCAD code here if I can do that. It is a bit inelegant but easy enough to decipher. I make no promises that this will print with usable tolerances (fit) on machines other than mine!

To produce the .stl files you just need OpenSCAD and some light editing at the end of the file to render the piece you want to produce the .stl for. Then press F6 to build and export the .stl).

Google Sketchup will probably be more than adequate. It's intuitive and easy to learn, but still capable of fairly complex modelling. The only downside is that it doesn't natively export STL files. You have to install a plugin to do that, but that's easy enough.

If you're more of a programmer type, you may appreciate OpenSCAD, a very powerful parametric modelling tool. But since you're new to 3D modelling, I recommend something that has a proper user interface so you can actually interact with the model you're working on.

Moving up from Sketchup, Autodesk 123D is very good, and very powerful. It was actually designed for 3D printing, and so natively supports nice file types like STL. It's also more capable than Sketchup, and still free.

In terms of paid software, I'm a fan of Autodesk's products (especially Inventor). They're pricey (unless you're a student or willing to pretend to be one, in which case it's all free), but industry-grade products.

TL;DR Sketchup will do what you need and is a good into to 3D modelling, but I would also suggest trying 123D.