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It's not good to use those because there is a very real risk of being caught and with all the free options I mention here it's pretty much pointless. Then there is trials, almost every major company has a trial and as long as you can create new email addresses and identities for yourself you can keep downloading and reinstalling trials until they block your IP address. Also blender is free and really good too. If what you are doing is really simple and you don't care much for learning cad and engineering you just need to get stuff done quickly then there's a bunch, I think opencad or scad something along those lines is really good. Open source licenses are available too, however in my experience the quality of these applications is highly subjective. You need to have a legitimate business, that is tax id duns number articles of incorporation bank account mailing address operating agreement, and of course be making less than 100k/year and be less than 3 years old.
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Student licenses from Autodesk are available to anyone free of cost for educational purposes and as long as you respect that they won't mind who downloads and uses their software.Įntrepeneur licenses are also free of cost from Autodesk, solidworks, and solid edge.
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Well that depends on your definition of free: Most open source CAD utilities will usually be fine for commercial use but make sure to check the license yourself and double check Fusion 360 is free until you start making over $100k a year ( I believe, don't quote me on it), TinkerCAD and OnShape are also free but supported by a commercial entity so make sure to look into their licenses if you want to use them. Makes sure that you look into the license of your CAD software. Lastly you mention that you are hoping to make a product. Definitely not everyone falls into this category but it can be worth checking if you are a student, especially in an engineering program. I love supporting open source software, but it really is several steps behind Fusion so that what I tend to use for day to day workĬreo/inventor/AutoCAD if you are a student and get free licenses. Not something I'd design a multi-part mechanism in but it can be done.įreeCAD if it being open source is a must have. OpenSCAD if you are a programmer and feel like using text and functions to define a 3D object. I just need a square with a cylinder coming off the side)
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