I started trying to play around with some CAD programs last year...
I just downloaded this as it comes highly recommended as a... well... Free CAD option. The days of SketchUp being free are pretty far gone, though it still has some free web-only usability. Anyway, I'm going to be learning this in hopes it will serve for my Speaker Design Goals, including being...
forums.audioholics.com
...but was quickly stymied. I started with FreeCAD which was highly recommended online only to find that learning it was a bit on the challenging side. I've had some previous CAD and Drafting experience which I thought should help me along. Sadly, no, and that discouraged me and I put off playing and learning for a while too long.
Now that I'm closer still to my planned Subwoofer build, I started feeling the urgency again. This time, I decided to look again at SketchUp. I had been turned off initially by the period that it was a Google product. And also by the cost if I wanted full functionality. Being the silly human I am, I didn't really research the option very well as it stopped being a Google property years ago, and the Free online App is quite useful.
I don't know yet if it will allow me to create a file compatible for CNC shops, but that is a problem I can solve another day.
In the meantime, without spending any time learning anything, I was able to start creating the simple panels that would make up a Speaker Cabinet. Over most of the afternoon, I stumbled my way through and successfully modeled everything for a simple Subwoofer Cabinet.
That night, I watched a few videos and learned some things I did wrong, and the next day I went back and started anew. This time I modeled a simple Subwoofer Cabinet in about 2 hours.
I have not included any bracing yet as I wanted to keep this pretty simple and just look at the panels I would likely handle and cut manually.
This design is based on the SI SQL-15 Driver. Cabinet is ~4cu.ft internal volume measuring 16x22.5x18". It is not my intention to build this design but I had to start playing somewhere.