Recommendations for the best Free CAD program

[FatFreddie]

OnShape (https://www.onshape.com/) is worth a look - it's free and browser based. It also works more like a standard CAD program (Solidworks, Cubify etc) than Sketchup so the skills will be more easily transferrable. The help is good as well....

[Neale]

When I first started with my CNC router, I used various bits of free/open-source software. I already had various CAD options to produce dxf files, so I concentrated on the CAM side of things. The two I ended up using most were dxf2gcode for 2D profiling, and PyCAM for 3D. Both are OK, but I spent a lot of time chasing problems, trying to fine-tune, and so on. But they do work, just take rather more effort than some of the commercial tools. I also used f-engrave which turns text to gcode and might be of interest.

OnShape is good, but at least at the moment you would have to use it to produce dxf files and then use something like dxf2gcode to turn that into gcode for the router. Fusion 360 is a bit more complicated to learn, but has CAM built in. Both are free, but could be a bit overwhelming if you are not already a bit of a CAD jockey.

[shoeswith]

Another good CAM package is Estlcam its not free but the license only costs 27 quid it does 2.5 and 3d machining as well as Vcarving and thread milling its also pretty simple to use.

[komatias]

The only two free CAD programs worth their salt are Fusion 360 and Onshape. The rest are meh...