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It looks really impressive, seems like it's largely oriented towards PCBs though?

Anyone have experience using it for woodworking modeling? Is there a better tool out there for that? I've been using SketchUp, which is "only ok": The modeling for parts is good, but setting it up for spitting out a cut list kind of sucks. Plus, it's like $300/year to buy the version that does cutlists, the web version will not. I use tinkercad for modeling 3d prints and mostly like it, it's kind of klunky, but easy for simpleish models.

I'll probably donate something to KiCAD, it'd be a no brainer to donate $300 instead of buying a year of SketchUp, but "buying" SketchUp for $300 for a year for something I'm going to use 3-5 times in the year is kind of a hard sell.

Been meaning to look at FreeCAD and SolveSpace.

Any recommendations for woodworking?



Asking if you can use PCB design tools for modelling woodwork may be one to the strangest things I've read today


Could be worse, you should have seen some of the silly complaints we got on the KiCad tracker in the past few years...particularly people trying to load 100MB svgs converted to PCB silkscreen because they want to abuse the cheap PCB fabs for artwork.


I saw some people mentioning that since mail-away PCB houses are so cheap and competent, they'll draft stuff like mounting brackets in KiCAD and have them cut out of FR-4 or aluminized PCB stock.

I'll admit to having done it with keyboard mounting plates-- they ended up significantly cheaper the price of traditional laser/water jet sheet aluminium, but you had to buy five units.


Kicad is oriented toward PCB and PCB only.


Thank you for clearing that up. Gonna donate $20.


CAD simply means Computer Aided Design. It does not imply solid modelling.


Try FreeCAD.




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