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Basic cad program suggestions?

DPittman

DPittman

Ultra Member
I have really zero experience with any sort of CAD program but have briefly tried some free ones years ago and was immediately intimidated.
I am hoping there are now better/easier options out there that someone could recommend.
Right now all I want to do is figure out how to place port holes on small oscillating engines. Ive seen the math involved to do so and it is far above my pay grade. I imagine there are a lot of programs that could do this, but suspect most of them are also above my pay grade/ understanding.
Any suggestions?
 
I've tried a couple cheap ones, like FreeCad, but they were kind of buggy. What I draw all my stuff on now is Fusion360, part of the AutoCAD group. The cool thing is that Fusion360 is free to hobbyists/students/startups under $100k/year. The only down side is that it is cloud-based so the files reside on their server but you can download copies of your work in .pdf and .dwg files to your own computer. It's not a problem for me as my projects are not security-sensitive.
 
There are lots of free-ish 2D packages out there. Almost too many to the point it would give me a headache to learn 25 different flavors of icons or commands to draw the same thing. Some of it is ok, some is junk. I hear Draftsight is pretty good, basically a cleaned up AutoCAD by the same makers of SolidWorks.

However if it was me starting out I'd be inclined to go to Fusion 360. My logic:

- there is going to be a learning curve to any new software you pick up, so may as well focus that time on one single product that will take you to whatever level you will go

- 3D parts start out life as 2D sketches anyway, so its the exact same building blocks. A 2D rectangle extruded is a solid. A curve rotated about an axis is a solid. A circle cut through a solid becomes a hole. That sort of thing. 3D package can develop 2D parts & drawings, but not the other way around

- "But I'll never use 3D'. YES you WILL, end of discussion 🙂 Seriously, the power of 3D for even simple stuff is worth the effort. Not just cad for anything you might want to design to make on a mill or lathe, its the exact same procedure to make a part for 3d printing for example, just a different save-as file format. Unlike any other 3D software, it has built-in Cam if you ever go cnc. If you don't, that's fine, it doesn't affect or impede how you draw parts, consider it as a bonus.

- Specific to 360, its zero to dirt cheap compared to industrial software. There are lots of free online courses & learning resources. Its not too PC intensive in terms of hardware. Its also parametric (that will make more sense later on, for now just know its a good thing)

- the cloud based thing I haven't got my head around. The plus is it makes running the app a bit less PC/OS dependent. Potential cons are file access, ownership, speed when you get into larger assemblies. Maybe this all disappears if you upgrade to anything other than free, but personally this would bug me. Whenever a company can say 'surprise, new deal, free now means $100 (or $500 in the case of Photobucket)...makes me apprehensive. Holding my work hostage is not cool. But its also the future including Microsoft 365 to a certain degree. But starting out I wouldn't let that deter you.

Do some googling of 365 with keywords of projects you ar einterested in. It probably wont take long for you to get the bug
 
Yes that tubalcain method is an easy way of doing things but it does mean you have to drill right thru the cylinder and then plug the holes afterward. I like the idea of the precise-ness of the mathematical way but it is pretty complicated for a simpleton like myself.

Don
 
I did not have to drill thru when i did it. Pretty sure my pin was lopsided as well but it works all the same. I remember not wanting to drill thru and having a hard time getting the pin to mark before falling into my cylinder, solution was using a piston to hold it to the cylinder "cap".
 
Have you ever tried onshape.com ? Easy to use (and learn). It also allows you to export parts, drawing and assembly to many different format for CNC and 3D printing as well. It is free to use, online/cloud-based application. If you dont pay, your designs will be public and anyone can see them. That's why there are many good designs you could use as well.
 
I have a friend that is trying to convert me to QCAD; It is a very professional program, well supported that sarted on UNIX, now on Win and Mac. I am not a CAD guy, but I'm trying to learn a package and put my designs in one....

I recently downloaded a CAD package suggested by (i think) Tom Lipton, but I had trouble with learning it.

My guess is that you have to learn to think differently about drawing/design. Up hill battle!!
 
I've seen some very sophisticated engineering in 2D. Well, before 3D became mainstream & quasi-affordable, 2D was the only game in town. I learned Autocad 2D back in the day (SAIT correspondence). It was brutally expensive, so for home purposes I opted for one of the less expensive versions, don't even recall what it was called Dcad maybe? It had the exact look & feel of Autocad. Then I used Rhino for several years, which is 2D/3D & quite powerful. It was about 800USD at the time but I plunked in my SAIT adult Ed 'student number' in & that got me the full version for 100$. They may have plugged that hole.

I think you will find that most of the 2D software functions similarly. A line is a line, a circle is a circle, connecting elements together by their control points (snapping) & dimensioning. You can input angles, move, copy, other relationships - that's kind of the fundamentals. No different that drafting which I did a lot of in high school & after. Then there is the concept of layers which is exactly like our old school tracing paper.

So from one perspective, it almost doesn't matter what 2D package you select. They all do the same thing in their own way. 2D is not as processor or graphics intensive as 3D because, well, there is less to compute & display. So which 2D software decision is more about running on your OS, cost, features & real world issues like physically printing your drawings to bring to the shop. Now the catch is, any 3D package that you MAY want to use one day involves these exact same 2D principles. To make a bar I first draw a 2D rectangle. Extrude it in another dimension, now its a 3D solid. To make a hole I select a surface, draw a 2D circle & remove material with a cut. Get the general idea? But with 3D comes the big payoff. Now that you have a bunch of individual 3D parts, you can bring them together into an 'assembly'. This is real design power. Now the piston + wrist pin + connecting rod can be viewed & manipulated together (to use a mechanical analogy). Building a V8? make 7 copies... that kind of concept. To do this in 2D is a lot more work.

So another line of thinking is: if I'm going to learn 2D, maybe just go straight to a 3D program. That way you learn their flavor of 2D only once & drift into 3D when the time comes. That may be advantageous over learning 2D in software A & then figuring out how to do the same thing in software B. Your 2D knowledge wont be lost no matter what you choose, but converting over may take transition time. Most 3D packages worth their weight will be more processor & graphics intensive = minimum PC hardware requirements. Sorry I don't know much about the OS implications of products like Fusion360 & haven't used it myself, but its also free for hobbyists. I don't fully understand the cloud based implications either, sorry.
 
Most of my machines will work fine for 3D packages... I'm not a fan of cloud based apps - serious security issues!
 
So... It turns out QCAD is no longer free! And...they have fallen behind in graphics and features. I am now learning LibreCAD, which is both free and up-to-date... I've just finished my first drawings, and after some learning struggles, I like it.
 
Re QCAD, yes I recall some guys on another forum grumping about that & I think they were into the more $$ CAM module for their projects. Is this the current single seat price? http://www.ribbonsoft.com/shop/category.php?id_category=67

I'm actually not surprised. My personal opinion is that one day Fusion360 will drop a Photobucket 'surprise' to the effect 'we have decided to longer support free software, but for an amazing introductory offer of XX $/year subscription comes the ability to access your own files'. LOL. It may take a few years to sink the hook. Or maybe I'm just being crunchy & it its legitimately a way to introduce new users into a software that they otherwise would not pay for in hopes that they will upgraded one day.

I think Draftsight Free is still 'free'. There is also what they call 'professional' which is a subscription. This chart shows the differences.
https://www.javelin-tech.com/blog/2017/05/draftsight-professional/
 
Yes, that is RibbonSoft's one-time QCAD licensing fee -- however it is really out of date on its graphics drivers, mired in QT3.

LibreCAD is at QT5, and gets improvements every few months; 6 months at most.
 
I spend far more time in front of the computer generating the drawings than I do in front of my waterjet making parts...
Most of my industrial customers send me DXF drawings. This I can use directly with no translating required.
Almost all of my signmaker customers send me .ai file format. Most of the time this is good enough for signage but would not be good enough for a precision drawing.
Occasionally someone will send me a PDF and most of the time this converts reasonably well to the DXF that we actually use on the waterjet.

Nesting software seems very popular, but personally I can make a nest just as good and it only takes a few minutes. No need to spend the big bucks on nesting software and then the hoursss to learn how to use it.
 
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