Download Draftsight from the makers of Solidworks: www.draftsight.com
When a company makes $2 billion dollars a year on 3D CAD software wants to
get into the 2D Cad market and take away market share from the leader
(AutoCAD) what do they do? Make it almost as good as AutoCAD and give it
away for free.
On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 1:21 AM, gandolfreefer <
synchronousmosfet@transformationaudio.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hey, just an update for anyone who might be starting down the same trail...
>
> I finally just settled on using the free CAD from emachineshop.com.
>
> It's probably not the greatest program out there, but, it's free!! And the
> 3D is pretty quick and OK. I found that 3D is a must, so you can doublecheck
> your work; it's amazing how ... at least for a dummy like me ... you can
> make a mistake in 2D and not really realize it until you see the 3D and you
> say, "oops, I've got that on the wrong side, etc., etc..."
>
> emachineshop does also enable you to get online quotes. Of course, the
> prices are for idiot entrepreneurs who have millions but no brains, but it's
> interesting to see...
>
> ...and, actually, emachineshop has a lot of nice built-in "real world"
> machining features that help you design something a machinest could actually
> make without too much trouble...things like menus for corner rounding,
> chamfering, etc., help.
>
> The trick to using it is to plan ahead for the largest possible overall
> size of your piece, and then, especially if the piece has special cutouts,
> build the biggest chunk of it line by line, arc by arc, and put it all
> together, paying attention to Z dimensions. Then use the intersect and group
> togehter functions to get units. Adding holes, etc, just requires thinking
> about which view you have to go to in order to avoid error messages.
>
> Error messages are maddening and a part of the steep learning curve for
> this program, but once you figure out that everything is subtractive, once
> you've committed to the largest bulk of the shape, and don't try to add
> stuff on, you'll mostly be OK. Adding stuff on usually gets so many error
> messages you just give up.
>
> I'm getting smarter at it, but I still often have to start over from
> scratch when I realize I didn't make the initial chunk big enough, since
> it's much easier to start over and do everything subtractively rather than
> try to add anything on later...it's just the way the program seems to be set
> up.
>
> Maybe that's the way all CAD programs are set up, I dunno (shrug).
>
> Printout is a royal pain, it prints out far too lightly, even with making
> the lines much thicker (it won't let you thicken dashed, hidden lines, so
> they print out so faint you can hardly see them).
>
> The way I solved this was to do Ctrl/PrtSc screen shots, import into paint,
> select the area, copy, import into a new paint file again, and then add
> color. By judiciously adding very light colors, I can make the background
> (hidden dashed) lines stand out enough to make the $O#@!! mechanical drawing
> readable on printout.
>
> Any tricks, suggestions, comments welcome.
>
> Very Best Regards, Charles
>
>
> --- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com <Homebrew_PCBs%40yahoogroups.com>,
> "gandolfreefer" <synchronousmosfet@...> wrote:
> >
> > Thanks guys, very much.
> >
> > I will try them, but it turns out I was very wrong about one thing:
> >
> > I thought I didn't need 3D, but it turns out 3D is very important for
> double-checking my work and for making sure the machinest gets it right.
> >
> > I have found eMachineShop to work quite nicely, once you figure out the
> little tricks in it.
> >
> > And it models 3D quickly. It's a little funky in some regards; it doesn't
> show threads, for example, it just gives a dot that tells you it's a
> threaded hole, etc, but I don't mind that.
> >
> > The only real complaint I have about eMachineShop's CAD is that it has a
> truly lousy printer utility; I'm working on figuring out how to make
> printouts look better. The 3D prints are fine, but the 2D prints are so
> light you can't hardly read them.
> >
> > Best, Charlie
> >
> > --- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com <Homebrew_PCBs%40yahoogroups.com>,
> "gandolfreefer" <synchronousmosfet@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hey guys,
> > >
> > > I just need to download a dead-easy, intuitive free CAD to make simple
> mechanical drawings for machine shops here to make parts for me.
> > >
> > > Nothing fancy...but it has to have some sort of drag and snap-to center
> feature. And I gotta print out easily. I'll be drawing lots of rectangles
> with various holes in them, and the occasional circle offset from a center
> bore (i.e. cam).
> > >
> > > I don't care about no 3D.
> > >
> > > I tried one, but after half an hour of trying to get a larger circle
> placed 5 mm from the center of my first, smaller circle, I gave up and
> deleted the $*#@!! thing.
> > >
> > > I'm sure it's a fine program, but I couldn't make heads nor tails of
> it. It was called CadStdLite, but it was too lite for my brain!!
> > >
> > > Other suggestions?
> > >
> > > Best, Charlie
> > >
> > > PS: I don't mind paying for the stinking thing in 30 days, so long as
> it isn't tre' expensive, but I'd rather just have a piece of freeware some
> enlightened soul wrote for his own use. :)
> > >
> >
>
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]