Anyone ever use this? https://www.freecadweb.org/ I just installed this version yesterday and it looks promising to me doing CAD for CNC.
I use it. It’s a great project, but it’s not without issue. The project continues to advance yet the native file format continues to evolve. I’ve not been bit but have read some have been. Crashes are possible. You can be left in a situation where constraints are broken when dimensions are changed in other layers.
There is also issues with work flow. Some things which should be fairly simple can be fairly involved and tedious. Others which are involved on other CAD can be fairly straight forward with FreeCAD. FreeCAD has excellent support for python and nicely integrates with openscad. Which may or may not be important to you.
It has good support for multiple CAD formats. It is certainly capable. Is it the best? No. Is it functional and surprisingly feature rich? Yes. It continues to get better all the time. But it’s certainly not best of breed today. Not trying to slam the project. Simply trying to be honest.
I’m currently running the daily builds on Linux. I found this to be a requirement to obtain the features and stability I desire/require.
It’s certainly not for everyone. IMO, it’s a personal choice if it’s good enough for you. If you have a more traditional commercial option, for now, they are a superior solution. But that’s coin out of your pocket. While some do offer inexpensive non-commercial licenses or even student licenses, finding one which support Linux is challenging. I prefer not to use wine or pirate a solution.
Right now, if you want something at the intersection of Linux and hobby affordable, which isn’t a crappy web service, IMOHO, it’s the strongest offer. Off Linux, you’ll likely find better student and/or non-commercial solutions.
Also can recommend OnShape https://www.onshape.com/
and https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/mechanical-software - both are free
I use FreeCAD as my primary modeler. There’s an active community for it on g+. I will say that it can be glitchy, but it does work. Recent upgrades have made some parts of parametric design easier.
I used FreeCAD for several years and it’s not bad. It does parametric modeling and outputs nice solid models. Eventually I became tired with parts of the UI, some crashes, and IHMO the Boolean operations not being very robust. I use Onshape now, and there are certainly things some don’t like about it too, or feel that it’s lacking, but for my personal use it’s been wonderful.
I agree with what @Greg_Copeland said.
Building upon @John_Bump 's comment… It’s in part why I’m using the daily builds. Improvements in performance, reliability, UI, and features (including some cool views) are all available in the daily builds. They even address many of the glitches. Of course, being daily builds they bring their own potential potholes. I’m sure most understand this. But there’s nothing which requires you upgrade daily if you find a release which satisfies your needs. Which is likely most daily builds.
@Greg_Copeland I tried to build the git pull yesterday of FreeCAD but it bombed out on me here. Cmake ran and it seemed satisfied with my build environment. Based on the error I can only assume there is something wrong with the code. It sounded to me like someone could not count to three? I know it can be hard sometimes. But I got v. 0.16 running. which is more than I can say for my efforts trying to build LibreCAD.
I know what you mean about FreeCAD being somewhat obtuse. But all AD strikes me that way. I just have to put time in on it to learn how it works. What I see motivates me to giving it a shot.
@John_Bump I’m hearing a lot about recent improvements with FreeCAD. I will have to give the git code another shot here. I wanted to run that version but the build errored out.
@Paul_Frederick I’m using the developer PPAs. Not compiling it for myself.
http://ppa.launchpad.net/freecad-maintainers/freecad-daily/ubuntu
I don’t know what os you’re using. On linux you can add the daily build to your repository list and then use apt-get. That has worked pretty well for me. I’ve had issues with more than just freecad when I try to compile from source, because dependency hell. I don’t think I ever did get openSCAM or whatever it’s called now to compile using cmake.
BTW, the daily builds are v0.17, not v0.16.
@John_Bump I have years of practice. I installed cmake-gui yesterday and it really helps with dependency issues. I had to upgrade the version of VTK that my distro offers. But the only way I could get cmake to find the new one was to configure it in the GUI. FreeCAD sure has some dependencies
$ ldd /home/pfred1/bin/FreeCAD/bin/FreeCAD | wc -l
72
So 72 libraries it is linked to.
For me installing software is kind of like a sleuth game that I play occasionally. I follow the breadcrumbs to the scene of the crime. You’re right, it is not always easy. But locally compiled software can run well.
The binary is linked to the exact libraries on my system. I have not had a glitch running FreeCAD yet. It is smooth as butter here.
@Greg_Copeland that’s cheating 
@Greg_Copeland 0.17 would not build for me when I Git pulled it yesterday. I’ll keep an eye on the change log and see if anyone fixes it. Maybe I’ll submit a bug report? For now 0.16 is good enough.
0.17 adds a new (confusing, but ultimately rewarding) system for part design that allows you to make a body object that your subsequent sketches go in, and that allows you to modify sketches/objects by moving them around in the hierarchy of pockets/joins so you can change stuff you did at the start of building an object without having to delete all the subsequent steps. Plus at least one person on the freecad forums will scream abuse at you if you post questions about 0.16 when 0.17 has been released. (not in the g+ community, just the forum associated with the freecad package itself.)
0.17 is where you want to be. But if 0.16 keeps you happy, then freecad is probably a good overall solution for you.
Plus, what @John_Bump said.
@John_Bump well I tried to build 0.17 but the goofs apparently can’t count to three.
@Greg_Copeland I do seem to be missing some buttons. I’m trying to follow along with a tutorial and things they have I can’t find. If someone would post a snapshot of 0.17 that builds I’d compile it. In a while I’ll update my source tree here and try again. Or I’ll just wait until they have a tarball of 0.17. That shouldn’t take more than a couple of years.
@Paul_Frederick That’s why some of us, “cheat”, and use the PPAs with pre-built packages.
@Greg_Copeland if it is good code it will compile. Someone has to build it.