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22 May 2012, 18:13 (Ref:3077929) | #1 | |
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CAD question
can anyone recommend a freeware CAD application which comes with idiot-proof tutorials? or is that too much to expect? Thanks for any insight. I've found qCad for Ubuntu so far.
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22 May 2012, 22:21 (Ref:3078082) | #2 | ||
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obviously google sketchup is free and the internet is packed full of tutorials and advice.
quite how good it is im not sure as it infuriated me within about 20minutes of usage and i gave up! it doesnt appear to work in the same way as conventional cad packages do |
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never eat belly button fluff |
22 May 2012, 23:14 (Ref:3078092) | #3 | ||
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If you only need it for 30 days you can try AutoCAD of course, although you won't master it in that time I suspect without some serious hours put in. If you're an actual student you can get a free copy of it, valid for three years provided you don't do any paying work on it.
Go to www.autodesk.com for more info. You can try Inventor for free while you're at it! |
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Nice one, Centurion! |
23 May 2012, 08:37 (Ref:3078201) | #4 | ||
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23 May 2012, 17:37 (Ref:3078394) | #5 | ||
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solidworks all the way for me!
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never eat belly button fluff |
25 May 2012, 08:24 (Ref:3079102) | #6 | ||
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2D or 3D?
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26 May 2012, 01:54 (Ref:3079344) | #7 | ||
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I picked up Autodesk Inventor dead quickly a few years ago in school, the teachers were no help really, they didn't have a clue. The whole thing was quite self explanatory, and there were plenty of great tutorials on youtube for the more complex stuff.
I'm using Solidworks now in Uni. They're both really good packages. They'll cost you though. Unless of course.. you can find other ways of obtaining a copy.. |
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26 May 2012, 07:49 (Ref:3079381) | #8 | ||
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Solidworks is awesome....and £4K for the base edition.
For 2D I tend to use Draftsight, it's free, has Windows, MAX and Linux versions and produced by the same people as Solidworks. There are lots of tutorials etc on the sight. For 3D I use Alibre. The base version is £160+VAT, does at 95% of what Solidworks does that I want and is getting more features all the time. There is a 30 day free trial available to download. Of course if you are a student, or know one, you can get the likes of Solidworks for free. |
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26 May 2012, 19:06 (Ref:3079612) | #9 | ||
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I originally learnt CAD with AutoCAD in the late 90s, and never really got on with other 'workflows'. I had to use I-DEAS at Uni, and thought it was terrible.
I had a little play with Solidworks for a while, but never got on with it, even though I could see it was very good. I now use Inventor, and see little reason at the moment to play with anything else for the time being. It just works the way I want it to (mostly - some stuff is silly and illogical, but that's going to be the same for all packages). |
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Dallara F307 Toyota, MSV F3 Cup - Class and Team Champion 2012 Monoposto Champion 2008, 2010 & 2011. |
29 May 2012, 11:42 (Ref:3081109) | #10 | ||
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I was going to say DS Catia, then I remembered you said freeware
http://www.graphiteone-cad.com/ a little birdie tells me this is well worth a look, and the free version is very capable. |
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I want a hat with "I only wanted one comb" written on it. |
31 May 2012, 11:16 (Ref:3082400) | #11 | ||
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You could try Alibre. Good luck.
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31 May 2012, 13:40 (Ref:3082603) | #12 | ||
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See if you can nab a student version of ProE Wildfire.
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26 Jun 2012, 23:05 (Ref:3098720) | #13 | ||
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Solidworks and Catia could be found in the dark areas of the interweb in my Uni days... That said we feel both are worth paying for and have licenses for both. Solidwords is a little more intuative and growing fast as an intigrated solution with dynamics, FEA and CFD plug ins. Catia has the edge with CNC work though as it can do tooling paths for you too.
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17 Nov 2012, 20:52 (Ref:3167607) | #14 | |
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Drew and taught staff how to use camshafts on Inventor at a company called Newman camshafts. Anyone know of any other firm that uses Inventor, which could use my CAD skills ?
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20 Nov 2012, 08:54 (Ref:3168944) | #15 | |
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I learnt on a drawing board with pencils, from 88, then Autocad in '94 and solidworks from 2005. I really pushed autocad to the limit with 3D at the time and it fell over. Solidworks is great, although I gather Autodesk have responded with inventor?
you can export solidworks straight to CNC, but cut patchs need checking . . . as with any packages there are differeing and multi file types. the thing I really like about solidowrks is its a solid. . . its logical. I've never got on with surfaces and rendering, thats not engineering, that's kids games. |
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