Nesco VS-12. Bought it a couple of cyber Monday sales back and it’s been a winner. Paid $99.

Use it for more than freezing food, leftover rice, remaining onion half, and even seal but don’t vacuum dishwasher or clothes washer pods when traveling so they don’t leak in the suitcase.

We’ve got a vacuum sealer so sometimes cube it up into portions for a quick thaw and add to salad, same thing but sized for a specific recipe, and sometimes just fling it in the middle of the room and devour it cave dweller style.

Only advice I can give, not knowing your learning style, is whatever CAD platform you choose will seem challenging until you “get” the mindset it uses. Not really hard, but all have an approach which will become natural after some time. Take something you did in Tinkercad in 10 minutes and recreate it in say freeCAD, initially it’ll seem like something so easy shouldn’t be this hard….in short order it’ll be a breeze.

There’s a ton of content out there for everything but a huge difference between being a teacher vs being an expert. People think it’s easy, just make a video of me doing something, but instruction is much more than that.

I like SketchUp for my woodworking stuff and wanted it to work with 3D but the shortcomings at the time weren’t worth it. The product could have changed so this could be dated.

Always seemed to fight getting models watertight which has been no issue with tinker, fusion, openscad, or freecad. Also, it was hard with curved objects. Lastly, it didn’t have parametric support which is a must for design once/use many things. As an example, I have a simple funnel with a lip to fit into bottles or whatever. Need one for a different container? Just a couple of adjustments and I’m printing.

Not saying not to use it but others have listed many alternatives for 3D that are superior. SketchUp seems to have a good community for questions it’s just that other tools have better (IMO.)

Totally agree with Bishma on Tinkercad, it has limits but you’ll be building stuff. I came from SketchUp which isn’t strong for 3D printing, played with Blender for a short bit then sucked it up and dove into Fusion.

I started watching videos from Paul McWhorter on YouTube who walks through things slowly instead of some of the other guys who go at a lightening fast pace, not saying they aren’t good but too many what just happened there moments. Paul’s videos are slightly dated but still strong for basics.

Fusion 360 or die learning…

Wife got me into the hobby to go along with my other interests like woodworking and restoration, “something to keep him busy”, but she’s a beast for scouring thingiverse and printables for stuff along with her own “what if” ideas. It’s great, sometimes I’m not interested in the object but getting there is so cool.

I’ve heard about this which is to challenge card sharing obviously. Heading there next week and see if my location is doing it. Memberships are for households so what are they validating? Same address and over 16 is what defines the extra household card.

Can’t say I mind, guess there’s a few positions on it.

1. It devalues my membership when extra cards are shared.
2. I lend granny my card to see if she likes it and wants a membership.
3. Major abusers, and I don’t know how this would work, sharing a single membership among many.
4. Costco needs additional membership plans? Seems like this could be a system issue depending on what those would look like. Me and granny only go a couple of times a year so a multi-household plan with a limited number of visits? Feels like a stretch case.

Looks like it’s American Family Insurance under the covers and they seem to have good reviews and lower customer complaints than usual. I just learned Costco offers this, thanks!