Thoughts on CAD

[ogopogo]

Turbocad and 3D design programs

Hi, I cant afford Solid Works either , but am reasonably satisfied with the free version of Alibre Express (alibre.com - downloads.) It has limitations of course but I am glad I persevered with it. ( I printed out all the on screen tutorials)
Alibre have a helpful user forum see alibre.com/forums
Also a program of interest- CoCreate OneSpace Modelling Personal Edition at www.cocreate.com/One SpaceModelingPE.cfm
For more reviews and articles re CAD see also manufacturing .cadalystcom
Finally I also use TurboCad, ( V10.5)and would not describe it as you did. Coming from 40 plus years of manual drafting and design I initially found it difficult to use any CAD program, but now would not go back. For most smaller machined parts I prefer Alibre. Hope this helps.

[mochinist]

If you just need a simple 2d drawing you can't beat autocad or its clones, or a simple piece of graph paper and a pencil. I think a lot of people run for the computer any chance they can get when a lot of times they could just sketch it out and be building it already, I have a guy that works for me like that, luckily he is a good machinist and makes up for it in other areas, still annoys me though.

Learning the command lines on Autocad will make you so much quicker. I know an engineer that does all of his work on an old version of autocad(v14 I think) anyways most of his machines have over 40,000 parts and its all drawn in there, no fancy 3D program and his parts are all smartly designed.

Something I see a lot of is people designing parts that have no business designing parts, solid modeling programs have made this easy to do.
Customer: "What do you mean you want $10k to make this part." Me: " We'll you have radiused and filleted(with non standard radiuses of course) every possible surface on the part, instead of telling me that the 4 countersunk holes are for a 1/4-20 screw you call out a hole size and a countersink size and left the default tolerance on of plus or minus .0001", and lastly you have a 4-40 threaded hole going 2 inches deep in 304 ss. You made a very nice picture though"

rant off Thats nothing against solidworks

[Spin Doctor]

Something I see a lot of is people designing parts that have no business designing parts

Happened with pencil and paper too

[mochinist]

Happened with pencil and paper too

That is no doubt true, but if I get a print that has actually been done with a pencil and paper and I'm talking a real print, that is scaled, dimensioned and not missing butt loads of information, it is pretty safe to say that the guy that made it probably knows what he/she is doing. With solid modeling I get prints that just look like the guy knows what they are doing.

[dp]

If the RAM question is in regard to Rhino then the answer is 2 GIG is adequate for most things. If doing some intricate design work then 4 GIG might be better.

I've been running it here in a Windows XP virtual machine that has been allocated 740K of ram and it's been working fine. I've also been using the Mac version on my Mac laptop with 2gig and it 's been fine there, too. I don't normally have a lot of objects to deal with, though. I think the most complex drawing I've used is the demo camera.

Too bad there's not an intermediate pricing available for people who are neither students nor corporations/Professionals. Don't even know how that could be made to work, though - although a metered system that checks the mothership via encrypted link and provides run-time at each startup/save could work.

[lazlo]

Windows XP can only use 3 GBytes of RAM anyway. In fact, before Service Pack 2, Windows XP could only use 2 Gbyte of RAM, because Microsoft maps 2 GByte of Kernel space into each user space (think: application) to reduce context-switch overhead when you make kernel calls.

With Service Pack 2, Microsoft released a patch that shrunk the amount of memory they map into each user space to 1 GByte, which leaves 3 GByte for any 1 application.

Windows Server 2003 doesn't have that limitation, and neither does Vista, but the latter is a whole 'nuther set of headaches.

[lane]

SolidEdge has a free 2D package that is very nice. This is a professional quality software package, check it out.

http://www.plm.automation.siemens.co...2d/index.shtml

No connection, just a very happy user.....

I use and like it . Not smart enough to figure it all out . But easy to learn to draw with .Free and has a good place to go and ask questions and get answers with in 1 day. the new V100 version is even a lot better than .V19 are V20

[BillH]

Right now I am playing with Solid Works 8.0 and Master Cam X3, I wish I knew how to use Master Cam, it sure imports Solid Works files without a problem. Don't ask.

[PaulT]

Bill H., you should definitely try out the free version of Inventor LT that was mentioned by an earlier poster. I own and used to use Rhino as my primary design package, but hardly fire it up anymore at all after discovering the Inventor package.

Its much more "nuts and bolts" oriented than Rhino, but still capable of a pretty high level design flow. It took me about week to learn how to use it but it was worth it, it really improved my design capabilities.

Search "Inventor LT" and you'll hit the download page. The built in tutorials are too simple to really learn how to use it, but if you look at the download page you'll find a link to some pretty in depth online tutorials.

Paul T.

[lazlo]

Search "Inventor LT" and you'll hit the download page. The built in tutorials are too simple to really learn how to use it, but if you look at the download page you'll find a link to some pretty in depth online tutorials

http://labs.autodesk.com/technologies/inventor_lt/

Looks good, but it says that Inventor LT is a time-limited demo that stops functioning on May 1, 2009?

"Once activated, Autodesk Inventor LT Technology Preview 2009 will run until May 1, 2009."

[fasto]

I've got Solidworks 2008, PDM works, fastener library, full boat - it cost around $10k (with training & service plan). It's very nice. It's very easy to draw objects that cannot be manufactured. It's very easy to hose yourself with the parametric functions. It's very easy to go totally overboard with the design.
I hired an "experienced" cad guy to run it. He did a nice first drawing, a simple aluminum panel. I had him change the size of the panel a little bit which should have left the holes that attach the PCB to the panel alone, and I stupidly didn't double check it. He had defined the holes relative to each panel side (why?) and the holes moved all over. Fifty brand new junk panels arrived in good time.
From then on I insisted that each element installed be totally defined relative to itself. This is not the way its taught. I got lots of arguments. Since I pay the bills my view won.
Myself, I use Autocad LT98. I've been using Autocad since R13 and it's very fast for me to use. I agree that 'offset' is your friend. Solidworks' 2d module is supposed to be quite good. I should probably try someday, as my $10k is sitting on that desk....

[loose nut]

http://labs.autodesk.com/technologies/inventor_lt/

Looks good, but it says that Inventor LT is a time-limited demo that stops functioning on May 1, 2009?

"Once activated, Autodesk Inventor LT Technology Preview 2009 will run until May 1, 2009."

They did that last year too and when it expired the "new" version was available for free downloading.

[loose nut]

You have to decide what you want the cad program to do for you. 2D and "semi" 3d like Solidworks 2D and Autocad are good drafting programs that replaced the drafting board and pencils. Parametric modelers like Solidworks and Inventor are design packages.

You have to separate the apples from the oranges, they don't really do the things the same way. If you want to do a simple drawing or layout a 2D pathway for CNC then the simpler program shines but when you want to design a complete machine then that were the Parametric 3D modelers really come into there own, they have a big advantage for those that can use them but not without some penalties, like longer drawing time. This can be offset buy a shorter lead time to manufacturing in other areas but it generally requires medium to large scale quantity production to justify it.

On the other hand it's a pile of fun and if you aren't working to a clock then the time it takes to learn and draw the offending assemblies of parts doesn't matter anyway.

Just decide what you want it for, work or hobby, simple or complex.

[BillH]

You have to decide what you want the cad program to do for you. 2D and "semi" 3d like Solidworks 2D and Autocad are good drafting programs that replaced the drafting board and pencils. Parametric modelers like Solidworks and Inventor are design packages.

You have to separate the apples from the oranges, they don't really do the things the same way. If you want to do a simple drawing or layout a 2D pathway for CNC then the simpler program shines but when you want to design a complete machine then that were the Parametric 3D modelers really come into there own, they have a big advantage for those that can use them but not without some penalties, like longer drawing time. This can be offset buy a shorter lead time to manufacturing in other areas but it generally requires medium to large scale quantity production to justify it.

On the other hand it's a pile of fun and if you aren't working to a clock then the time it takes to learn and draw the offending assemblies of parts doesn't matter anyway.

Just decide what you want it for, work or hobby, simple or complex.

I use solid works for design, I freaking love it! MasterCam X3 on the other hand, I have no freaking clue as to how to use it... Well not that it matters, I don't even own a CNC anything...

[dp]

Rhino 4 spur gear

Anyone seen a tutorial on drawing involute spur gears in Rhino?