CAD users out there?

[clive milne]

I have been using AutoCAD LT at work for a little while and want to take the next step (into 3D) for home use. The cost of a full licence from Autodesk simply rules it out of consideration for me.

Would anyone care to share their opinions on the viable alternatives?

What about PunchCAD Shark LT?
http://www.punchcad.com/p-11-shark-lt-v8.aspx

fwiw) It appears that it pays to do some digging. Here's a discount voucher:
http://www.colormango.com/product/pu...lt_119674.html

Here's a 75% discount coupon for the full version, albeit expired:http://couponfollow.com/code/details/477073

Incidentally, the best value 2D CAD software I have found is by the owners (as distinct from creators) of SolidWorks; Dassault Systems. It is free and at the same level as AutoCad LT from Autodesk... I presume they are hoping it will attract users to their full version which has some astoundingly good modelling features.
http://www.solidworks.com/sw/product...-downloads.htm

cheers
c

[CJ (Chris)]

Hi Clive.
I take it you've ruled out Google's Sketchup. It's easy to use but quite capable and it's free. The Pro version is costs but is more sophisticated.
Cheers

[pluto (Hugh)]

I'm not sure what you're using it for but if you don't need a full CAD environment and solid modeling you could try Blender. Of course it's geared towards animation/vfx but it has quite comprehensive modeling tools. It would certainly do the job if you were just modelling for 3d printing or similar. Oh and it's free!

[louie_the_fly (Stew)]

Clive, there is a free 3D solid modelling package called OpenSCAD. I've not used it, but if it's anything like their website says, it could be OK. They say it imports and exports files for rapid prototyping (& 3D printing) so I'd say it also translates to & from .stp, .sat, parasolid, etc. http://www.openscad.org/index.html

Depending on the client I am working for at the time I use Inventor, Alias, SolidWorks, Catia or SolidEdge for 3D, & typically AutoCAD for 2D stuff like P&ID's, schematic layouts, etc. All my work is mechanical design. I reckon I've used 20+ packages since I started using CAD (30 years ago).

If you do give OpenSCAD a try I'd be interested in hearing what it's like.

Bit different to the old days of mylar film and ink pens.

[louie_the_fly (Stew)]

Originally Posted by louie_the_fly

Clive, there is a free 3D solid modelling package called OpenSCAD. I've not used it, but if it's anything like their website says, it could be OK.

Forget OpenSCAD. I just downloaded it and trialed it. It's rubbish.

[louie_the_fly (Stew)]

This might be better. http://www.freecadweb.org/

It has a fairly generic 3D modelling layout and on first use it seems quite simple to use. It took me a few minutes to find the dimensioning tools, but once found (FIX commands on the Constraints toolbar in the Sketch environment) it was pretty quick & easy to extrude a simple 3D shape and add some detail. Well worth a go I'd say. I'm going to leave it on my astronomy laptop.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

umm. By far the hardest part of 3D printing is drawing a PRINTABLE item. I tried a few free apps including Google Sketchup. What a time wasting mess anything free was!. What would you expect!.

Lots of apps including Sketchup are very easy to use and produce amazing 3D objects on the screen with little effort, alls well until you actually try to PRINT it. 3D modelling and printable 3D modelling are very different things. The requirements to print a 3D model are very specific and often unintuative. To prepare a model suitable for printing manually is difficult and time consuming, Sketchup was not originally designed for 3D printing and produced crap unless stupid time was spent in preperation.

After much homework, I chose Bonzia3D, as it is made for 3D printing and has many tools for model checking/correcting and solid tools. Its not free, but not that expensive. I found it sufficient for 3D printing.

Thats the key, the app must specifically have Solids tools, the more the better, and rule checking/auto correction, it will save many hrs of frustration.

[pluto (Hugh)]

I guess it depends a lot on your slicing software and the printer Fred. I only have experience with a Makerbot printer and I just model everything in polys in Maya (I'm in Animation/VFX not CAD) and spit it out as an obj, not solid modelling or anything, and the makerbot slicer takes care of it pretty well. Of course the models are pretty clean before I try and slice and when it does have issues it's usually pretty easy to identify the problem, usually random flipped normals or intersecting faces.
In my experience if it's well modeled for the screen it'll work fine with the Makerbot.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

OK, my only experience is STL files to the printer.

Also, Maya is pretty proper and serious isnt it, not free?.

Edit...Ha!, Maya starts at $5K!, of course it works!.

[pluto (Hugh)]

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Also, Maya is pretty proper and serious isnt it, not free?.

Yeah definitely not free but poly modeling is pretty standard. Poly modeling would be really similar in Blender which is free.

I've had a tiny bit of experience exporting STLs from Maya but they were printed by professional shops so I'm not sure how much love they had to give the models before they printed.

EDIT: I wish it worked a bit better! I spend a significant amount of my life working around it's 'quirks'

[Bassnut (Fred)]

I used a 3rd party STL rule checker on output from (or near) free apps, that was an education. You live in a protected bubble with Maya Hugh, you get what you pay for.

And, I use a3d ups printer. They invented STL, so I assume they interpret STL correctly.

[clive milne]

Originally Posted by CJ

Hi Clive.
I take it you've ruled out Google's Sketchup. It's easy to use but quite capable and it's free. The Pro version is costs but is more sophisticated.
Cheers

Thanks for the heads up... can't say I have come across it before.
I'll check it out.

[clive milne]

Originally Posted by pluto

I'm not sure what you're using it for but if you don't need a full CAD environment and solid modeling you could try Blender. Of course it's geared towards animation/vfx but it has quite comprehensive modeling tools. It would certainly do the job if you were just modelling for 3d printing or similar. Oh and it's free!

I'm more after something that will generate 3D drawings for CNC milling of telescope components. It would be nice if it included f.e.a. as well.

cheers
c

[pluto (Hugh)]

Originally Posted by Bassnut

I used a 3rd party STL rule checker on output from (or near) free apps, that was an education. You live in a protected bubble with Maya Hugh, you get what you pay for.

And, I use a3d ups printer. They invented STL, so I assume they interpret STL correctly.

An OBJ's an OBJ. The tools and techniques for poly modeling, and more importantly the kind of mesh data that can be stored in an OBJ, really haven't changed much in a long time so it's not like Maya has some magical modeling tools that aren't available in much cheaper and free software. In fact basically anything I can model in Maya could be modeled in Blender, which is free, and once exported to an OBJ there would be no way to tell what software it was modeled in. My point is the fact I use Maya is irrelevant to my workflow with the Makerbot.

However you would probably be correct if you'd said I'm in a protected bubble with the Makerbot as it's software is doing the hard work converting my standard OBJ meshes into instructions for the printer. Then again the Makerbot has some serious design and reliability issues that I'd rather not be in a bubble with but that's another story...

Originally Posted by clive milne

I'm more after something that will generate 3D drawings for CNC milling of telescope components. It would be nice if it included f.e.a. as well.

cheers
c

Ah cool, I hope you find something that works

[algwat (Alan)]

http://openbuildspartstore.com/frequ...ked-questions/

this looks interesting, rgds Alan

[algwat (Alan)]

also, this,
http://www.machsupport.com/software/mach4/

rgds, alan

[algwat (Alan)]

just one more found by looking around previous links,
http://mecsoft.com/visualmill/

rgds, alan

[louie_the_fly (Stew)]

I'll also check my old software. I might have an old version of solidworks or smartcam laying around somewhere that you can "borrow". Smartcam is a surface modeling package as opposed to solids, but still pretty easy to use. Will check it out and get back to you.

[sheeny (Al)]

G'Day Clive,

I use Autocad and Solidworks at work, but I have Freecad and Google Sketchup at home.

Sketchup has a very intuitive interface (says he who has been using CAD for years) which makes the first part of the learning curve easier. I'm still just playing with the free version at home, but the Pro version is very reasonably priced. If I decide to use it in preference to Freecad, I'll upgrade to Pro. There are some clunky limitations in Sketchup, for example, no flexible mirror operation built in. There are workarounds, and allegedly there is an addin for it, but I wasn't able to download it.

Freecad is quite clunky relative to say Solidworks, but then you're comparing free software to a multi-thousand dollar package. The assembly module for Freecad is still not developed, but its happening - that may not be important to what you want to do, I don't know.

For home use 3D modelling, I would recommend either Freecad or Sketchup, but while they are both good for CAD, I'm not aware that either has a CAM capability, so you might still be looking for something else to produce your code for your CNC machine.

As for free/cheap FEA software, have a look at LISA FET. The free version has a limit of 1300 nodes, and it's surprising what you can do within that limitation for structural stuff, but it may be a bit limiting for valid analysis of a detailed machined part. The full licence is about $100, which I recently got. You can export either IGES or STEP files from Freecad to LISA for meshing and analysis (I have done this) and in theory you should be able to do the meshing in Freecad and just analyse in LISA, but I haven't tried that yet.

Al.

[louie_the_fly (Stew)]

Originally Posted by sheeny

so you might still be looking for something else to produce your code for your CNC machine.

When I managed a couple of toolrooms over a 12 year period (a few years back now) I wouldn't use CNC code supplied by the customer. The reason being that even though you verify his program, when his code crashes your machine, and believe me, this happens, the customer won't want to pay for a new spindle assembly for your $500K machining centre.

Best to just provide the 3D model to the machine shop in my opinion. Even in this case, depending on the customer, we would often reproduce the 3d model from their 2D drawings. Piece of mind.