Chat

• 13:01:15 From Alexander to Everyone:
  hello )

• 13:08:44 From Jeremy Simon to Everyone: Ward, would you like to help moderate? If we ask questions here, can you ask Andrew about those when you think the time is right? 13:13:07 From Ben Rubin to Everyone: Good idea! 13:13:20 From Ben Rubin to Everyone: Ward, you can collect the chat questions 13:13:53 From Ben Rubin to Everyone: From YouTube: Tek Maverick ​Fusion 360 has a free use for all educational and for the hobbyists

  Tek Maverick
  ​also, while still using an stl-based 3d engine, as opposed to CAD like solid body engines, Blender has recently got some meaningful applications with geometry nodes, that allow parametrics
  

  13:13:55 From Ward Holloway PE to Everyone:
  From youtube?
  13:14:03 From Alexander to Everyone:
  

  
  13:14:09 From Alexander to Everyone:
  livestreamed
  13:14:13 From Ben Rubin to Everyone:
  yes
  13:15:15 From Alexander to Everyone:
  so 2 questions so far 1) what about blender? with geometry nodes it's technically parametric, granted a bit quirky to work with if you are only used to traditional CADs 2) have you considered the manufacturing focused tools that fusion360 brings?
  13:17:41 From Alexander to Everyone:
  I think the comparison it's not quite apes to apples, as the intuitive part depends on your experience. I've met a lot of designers that would take blender with quirky parameters over a CAD any day of the week. and I have a couple of programmers I know that really enjoy OpenSCAD and find it very familiar, while Fusion or Solidworks are very weird to them
  13:18:28 From Jeremy Simon to Everyone:
  I had the same experience. Everyone who manages to get through the learning curve seem to love it, but most don’t seem to make it that far.
  13:19:24 From Jeremy Simon to Everyone:
  CAM would be a plus, but it’s not commonly used by e-NABLE volunteers currently
  13:19:25 From Alexander to Everyone:
  also as Jeremy mentioned in a previous meeting: Fusion360 now has great support for stl based meshes, which most of our current device are represented in. sadly in F360 we still have a small number of the devices
  13:20:05 From Jeremy Simon to Everyone:
  I think Andrew is smart to be focusing mainly on the core collaborative CAD functionality that we need most
  13:20:07 From Alexander to Everyone:
  although having the devices made in multiple software is great, a version in Blender, Fusion, OnShape, to have a version for whatever the makers have an affinity for
  13:23:44 From Jeremy Simon to Everyone:
  We need a matrix (spreadsheet)… Designs, sorted by popularity, with check boxes for each CAD platform to indicate whether we’ve ported that design to that platform yet. Maybe as part of your new project, Alexander?
  13:25:32 From Alexander to Everyone:
  I really like how the presentation feels professional and it's well balanced
  13:27:52 From Alexander to Everyone:
  the way OnShape deals with the little notes is similar to Fusion, but seems to be much better placed to be easily used
  13:31:22 From Alexander to Everyone:
  Git is very similar yes. the only major difference that I can see is that on git you have a master branch, where here there is no such thing. you can have names for a branch, but you can't tell which the master is, if I understood properly what Onshape does
  13:33:00 From Alexander to Everyone:
  the config table of Onshape does look much nicer than Fusion's parameter list. Maybe Fusion's can be customized to look as nice, but I'm not aware of such a thing
  13:36:27 From Alexander to Everyone:
  oh REALLY important: how does Onshape deal with meshes? can it import them? can you work with them?
  13:37:35 From Alexander to Everyone:
  so that's a projection
  13:38:12 From Ward Holloway PE to Everyone:
  Unknown, we have imported step files and Solidwoks files without errors. Havn't tried meshes yet.
  13:38:54 From Alexander to Everyone:
  oh that LOFT solution is really cool! nice solution!
  13:39:20 From Alexander to Everyone:
  meshes are defined at their core very differently from solid bodies, so that's why
  13:43:12 From Alexander to Everyone:
  that seems like a very fair and balanced analysis of Onshape
  13:44:44 From Alexander to Everyone:
  are all those apps free?
  13:46:35 From Jeremy Simon to Everyone:
  No, some are free. Others are trials.
  13:47:10 From Alexander to Everyone:
  the scripting could be really really interesting with the joint negatives idea, as it could be the best alternative of thingiverse customizer. How does the stl exporting work on Onshape?
  13:50:37 From Alexander to Everyone:
  for "noobs" and beginner makers, I think OnShape is quite an obvious choice over Fusion360, even if only for having the same general functionality and not needed a beast of a computer
  13:51:44 From Alexander to Everyone:
  with OnShape, you can technically prepare a model from home, go out in the field with you phone, correct the measurements and parameters on the fly and send the files to a printer right then and there
  13:54:50 From Alexander to Everyone:
  I got a question: STL exporting of those files?
  13:54:54 From Alexander to Everyone:
  for 3d printing
  13:55:00 From Ward Holloway PE to Everyone:
  I'll check.
  13:55:46 From Alexander to Everyone:
  if you can export STL files, you can upload them while out in the field to an octoprint server, and start a printing session.
  13:57:15 From Alexander to Everyone:
  could you put that file in a slicer?
  14:01:15 From Alexander to Everyone:
  could you repost the file? it had an error and had to erase it
  14:13:09 From Alexander to Everyone:
  as soon as my enable work gets a bit more of an orientation and stops being all over the place, I need to get into Onshape as well to see what I can help with. right now sadly I'm chasing a couple of different things which are all just starting at the same time, so I can't take on any responsibility for learning a new CAD software from scratch and make meaningful contributions. yet.
  14:13:35 From Alexander to Everyone:
  *and making