[shakes]

So as to not take over the winch bar thread. (Which is what my next major project will be)

Yes I know it’s not super friendly and a rather steep learning curve. I also understand most of the ‘free’ ones can be substandard or have limitation.

I’ve got time, and need to learn new skills. I also understand photoshop, and basic video editing.

I’ve had fusion recommended to me. Any other suggestions?

[seanzook06]

I am about as noob as they come.
I just used sketchup for my winch bar and it worked well and gave me a good end product.
i did have a few headaches along the way, but they were all due to my poor technology skills, nothing wrong with the program.
anything I couldnt figure out how to do I just looked up on google and there was generally a video tutorial on how to do it.

[tanshi]

I designed my whole buggy chassis in sketchup. but its not great for getting measurements off of after its drawn.

2d cad i use an old autocad 2002 version for my laser cutting and design.

[rexhunta]

Find someone you know who goes to tafe, grab their details and download autocad student edition for free. gives you a 3 year license.

I've got a lot of stuff I made for my Suzuki and Jeep on autocad and shared the files. front and rear bars, extended shackles, random brackets and things.

[Wolf]

fusion 360 is go to hobby light profesional grade. been using it for about 4 years now and its really good. Has sheetmetal section which i need to get into. plenty of good tutorials onlin3

[Sausager]

Onshape is absolutely ideal for what you are looking for. It is entirely browser based, with all computing done on Onshape servers. This means you can access your files anywhere, any time, on any old PC/tablet/phone. You don't need to go out and buy a grunty CAD workstation. Onshape is also a true 3D design package, not like AutoCad or similar which I find very unintuitive to use in 3D. While Sketchup will also likely do what you want it to, I find it an extremely frustrating piece of software to use.

The best part is that Onshape is completely free to use for non-commercial use, no licences etc to deal with

It was developed by one of the same guys that started Solidworks which I believe is the most common 3D design CAD software in the world. And you can tell - there is a lot of crossover between the two. Onshape is powerful, though the learning curve may be steep (hard for me to know since I know solidworks so well and Onshape works very similar to SW). Learn the sheetmetal tools as a priority if building a bar is your first project.