Since it was free (students and hobbyists) and had some features I was interested in, I decided to give fusion 360 a try.

Day 1: Utter frustration. I could make basic shapes and forms but could not get objects to interact in a predictable way. 6 hours got me a basic 90 degree plumbing elbow (but I wasn't quite sure how I got there). Watched lots of vids.

Day 2: complete confusion. I could begin to appreciate the complexities of the app compared to Sketchup, but there were so many things going on. 6 hours got me a a wye sweep with slip insets. Darned if I could put threads on a part. Watched lots of vids.

Day3: Constraints made sense and the underlying concepts of Fusion started to make sense. Boy are there a lot of different ways to do the same thing, some much better/easier than others. Recreated the wye in 15 minutes. Made an npt threaded cylinder the easy way using a circle, extrude and the coil tool. Open tool, start sketch, add parameters in dialog box and presto... paremetric is awesome.

I might actually have something of my own design to print by the time my printer arrives.

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