I have been out of the CAD game for 20 some years now and boy have things changed since then. Soooo Now I have to learn it from scratch again. I decided to get a copy of Shapr 3D for a year and use my I Pad and a pen to draw with. I have a few designs in my head, mainly automotive stuff that I want to build or print on a 3D printer. And I needed some custom housings for electronic temperature controllers for a boat I am working on and farming those out would have been more expensive than buying a 3 d printer. I bought the thing as a kit and changed some bit out for things that I preferred the function of.
Learning CAD again from pretty much scratch is not as easy as it as 40 years ago when the hard drive between my ears was less worn out, or not so full of crap as it is these days.
It is a challenge but still fun to learn something that is new again to me. Slicing software is another thing that is new and interesting for this old fart. ( its the stuff that turns a 3 D drawing into something a 3D printer can understand. ) Again, what is easy for the printer is not so easy for me. There are a whole bunch of parameters to consider to turn out good looking and working plastic parts.
Still ..... it beats carpentry
Now I keep getting ideas in my head for things I can now make and it will not involve sparks or metal chips. I'll finally have a primer catcher for my RCBS turret press. A spray guard for the nozzle on my weed killing machine, and a whole bunch of other things. The list seems to expand day by day and I sit at night drawing the things up in CAD that I was thinking about during the day. New scapes for my skinning knife are also on the list.

Do any of you folks get stuck into things like that even though they are not exactly a necessity and then won't let go of the bone as it where ??

Got a deal on a prussa 3d printer but haven't taken time to learn anything about running it lol and yeah got ideas for things to make with it.

I still use CAD a lot. When I started, it was Generic Cad - which became AutoCad. I've used several different software options and am currently using Solid Edge by Siemens.

But, I still don't know how to do 3D. I've never had a project that required it so I still draw everything in 2D. I'd be starting over from scratch if I had to go 3D. I have no idea even where to start. When I need to figure out something in 3D, I still draw it in 3 views and do my calculations between the views or use projections of the three views to create a 4th view at some oddball angle so I can measure something. It doesn't come up much but I'm sure it is taking me 10x longer than it needs to just because I didn't keep up with technology.

I used to get frustrated with my parents for not understanding the latest tech. I wondered why they were so slow.

Way back when Moby Dick was a little minnow I used one of the early versions of auto cad but have not worked with drawing software for over 20 years. And not having kept up with things at all on that front, it kind of got away from me. i do however find it very interesting how much things have advanced on that front. Its a bit like having known a toddler and then seeing him again over 20 years later .... "like you have grown a lot since I last saw ya " That link of thing

One of my sons is a Design Engineer for Carrier Corporation and uses 3-D printers all the time.If you need any pointers he could probly help you out.

My son also is an engineer and has done a lot with design and 3D printing, it's amazing how much stuff he can make. You might find a lot of designs have already been made and available for the printer.
I'll get you the websites...

Two big 3D print sharing sites are Thingiverse and printables, hope this helps...

In the early 80's I was doing a project in South Chicago. The client gave me a pirated version on AutoCAD® version 4, and a mimeographed set of instructions. I studied them in the hotel room at night, and by the end of the project became pretty proficient.

I went back to the office, convinced the boss to buy a copy, and taught a few draftsmen and engineers. It wasn't up to the task, yet, for doing plant layouts, but was great for a lot of detail parts

It wasn't until the turn of the century where its 3D became useful as an engineering drawing, rather than just a display graphic..

Look where we have come today.

Thank you gcs. For me its not as much for just printing ready designed parts as making things that are floating around in my head but it would be to expensive and time consuming to make them out of metal.
Sure I could cut those mounting consoles out of aluminium and tis them together etc. But its over the top and way to time consuming and there is zero advantage in this case as far as material choice gos to use metal. the thing that kicked it off for me was that near here is a company that have a CNC laser cutting machine and they do work for people , but they need the files to work with. I needed a window frame for a boat that had an integrated plate at the top center to mount a small sail winch on. Now cutting that out with a grinder etc, with all the round shapes in there and it has to fit over the frame that is in the boat now, would have been a nightmare. So i looked around for a program I could use to draw the thing up and put on a thumb drive to take to those folks. they cut it out of a sheet of stainless that i supplied within a few minutes. More accurate than i could have done in a reasonable time frame and all I had to do is chamfer the edges a little and polish the thing. Thats how this whole thing started about 3 weeks ago. Now the printer is in the trailer, printing the first of the Temperature controller consoles. I can print all 4 parts of it in one go and just screw them together when done. Using black PLA, I don't even have to paint the things. So while I am now sitting here posting BS on T man, My printer is working and making money for me
Once done, I fire up the 2 D printer to do the invoice

Some of this "modern" stuff is a game changer....My son works for Lockheed and they print a LOT of stuff now, saves a lot of time from one off modeling.
He doesn't work with the job printers but has his own at home that he designs and makes parts for other places.

And I hear you on the cutting and grinding....recuperating from almost cutting my finger off with an angle grinder cut off disc when it exploded