r/cad

34yo, looking for career change

Apologies if there is a better place to put this question.

American 34 years old. I used to work in VFX and 3D animation, but the industry has really dried up and I just don't have the passion for it like I used to. Unrelated, but I am currently 1 year away from finishing a Linguistics BA at UCLA. This is my first degree (I didn't finish highschool and went straight to work) I will graduate with minimal debt as I worked full time.

While I lost the joy of creative work, I still like 3D modeling and building things. If I wanted to work in this industry freelance and remote, where would I begin? What certs, courses, or programs would I want to invest my time into?

I'd prefer not to spend a lot of money at first as I just try to wrap my head around what a day to day would look like.

I'm watching YT videos and reading old reddit posts, but I'd like to see what the current vibe of the community is.

Thank you.

reddit.com

u/BackwardsApe — 6 days ago

▲ 14 r/cad

Engineers designing impossible corners is going to end me

I swear they don't teach basic manufacturability in college anymore

Just opened a step file from one of our new mechanical guys and it has perfectly sharp internal corners at the bottom of a 4 inch deep pocket. like... what imaginary endmill do you think is going to cut that?

Im the one who has to prep these models for production and we usually send our complex overflow stuff out to lowrance machine when we get backed up. I know for a fact the guys on their shop floor would literally laugh me out of the building if I sent this print over as-is

Ended up spending my entire afternoon just going through and adding dogbone reliefs and proper radii to everything so it can actually be made in the real world. Starting to think everyone who uses cad should be forced to run a mill for at least a week before they ever get a solidworks license. tbh just completely exhausted from fixing the exact same geometry mistakes every single week

reddit.com

u/ponderingpixi17 — 11 days ago

▲ 6 r/cad+1 crossposts

[HELP] trying to modify dimensions of a mesh->solid object

Hello guys, kinda new to 3d printing and CAD in general, i got a .3mf mesh file for a part that i wanted, but i wanted to modify dimensions of it of certain sections of that object

i was able to follow tutorials to convert the mesh to a solid, but i am not able to find(and understand) how to change dimensions (see pic below)

my objective is to change the height of the C hook from 21mm to 19mm

and change the height of the blue part from 19mm to 21mm

but i am not able to understand how to do it, i tried making a new part and a new sketch but the changes arent reflected

i also tried creating a pocket and doing changes on there

i'd appreciate a simplified approach for this please

u/Anomaly-XB6783746 — 10 days ago

▲ 20 r/cad