Haven't been on the forum for a while ... I use FreeCAD quite frequent and I am active in the FC forum. It has done major leaps forward with the 1.0 release. TNP is not fully solved, but much better. Yes, FreeCAD requires patience to learn, has a steep learning curve and you need to be aware of its traps. But it has become a very powerful CAD/CAM/FEM/... package. Du to its Python capability and functional openness, you can do wild things using Python and if needed, program it to your needs (incl. the CAM side). I am coming from the Sketchup and Fusion side, and switched to FreeCAD. I still use Sketchup to design and build furniture (also tables, benches etc. for my job shop, also did my exterior and interior house design with it), but for all the mechanical stuff I switched to FreeCAD (incl. CAM). For electronic stuff I use KiCAD, but compared to FreeCAD quite seldom.
