What Do You Use To Draw/design Projects?

Bob Korves said:
What about you, John? Can you see yourself making CAD drawings to make parts for antique engines?
Click to expand...
These days, a pen or pencil on a piece of copy paper is about as fancy as it gets, and what with "essential tremor" they do not look as nice as they used to by any means; I used to make a pretty nice sketch, still have a few made back when I was working at Kaiser Steel in Napa on the back of old time cards, complete with "line work" shading that look quite nice; I learned about line work from one of the engineer/draftsmen who worked in engineering there; his drawings really stood out for legibility, you instantly saw what it was you were looking at, even in assembly drawings; R.I.P. Rudy Bergantini.
 
uncle harry said:
I have been working on a special machine design for a client to be able to test toilet paper dispensers. As usual I started by sketching concepts on used envelopes or other sources of paper like bar napkins etc. when away from my office. Once I had the basic concept I used copy paper to close in on configuration design using sketches of components that I'll be using. After I feel confident with the design I verify the design on Autocad Inventor 2012. For working drawings I sketch parts from the Cad layouts and head to the shop. Being ancient permits me to design things even if the power goes out.
Click to expand...

Agree.. regardless what cad system I always encourage my guys to first think it, then grab a pancil and paper and quickly sketch it. If it passes the sniff test then invest the time in cad to develop further. If the basic idea is already a known then straight to cad is usually faster.
 
I design and make simple parts (on paper) and would like to start using software for drawings. Which program is best for 2d and 3d drawings/renderings
that I can use with Windows and/or possibly Mac? For now, 2d is usually enough. Need recommendations.
 
Last edited:
I use Surfware cad/cam.
I bought the software over 20 years ago.
5 Axis program , over 20K
This project , 57 layers and over 600 surfaces

Wire Frame.jpg

Rendered.jpg
 
Well, I will have to say this. I spent a big chunk of today messing with SolidWorks that I downloaded a little while ago. I have one word....frustrating. It probably has something to do with trying to learn a new CAD program, but I feel that Fusion 360 is WAY ahead of SW as far as user interface and intuitive processes.

If someone has experience and is proficient with both, I would like to hear of an honest comparison between between Fusion and SW.
 
Coming from AutoCAD, SolidWorks was frustrating for me as well. Intuitively, I knew there had to be a way to do what I was trying to do but there wasn't a clear path and the supporting documentation wasn't really clear. What gave me the lift up was a series of books called "The SolidWorks Bible" by Matt Lombard. For a number of years, he published a new one each year and I have the 2007, 2009, and 2010 editions. The older editions are available on Amazon for as little as $4.00.

I am going through the same process with Fusion now. Fusion differs enough from SolidWorks that the transition hasn't been easy. It doesn't help matters that I have SolidWorks to fall back on so the incentive to become proficient with Fusion isn't as great. There aren't really any good Fusion references available from my searches. I suspect that is because Fusion constantly goes through upgrades so and hard copy reference would be outdated before the ink dried. My goal is to gain the proficiency this winter. I figure I will have to do some total immersion.
 
I have been wanting and even trying to learn Fusion for a couple years, and sketchup more often than that. They update the program at least 10x more often than I have a chance to open it and spend any amount of time trying to get my head around any of it. Last CAD program I used was AutoCAD R12, which IIRC was the last version without any 3D functionality. I was really good at doing isometric drawings of mechanical parts. Not as much with the architectural stuff. As the bulk of my career has been spent in 2D software (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Corel Draw, QuarkXPress, Acrobat, rip software, etc.) the 3D interface and object manipulation and such have always frustrated me. No question I'm capable of learning it, but when my efforts to do so are spread out over weeks and months I forget what I learned before the next time I sit down. Thus I'm a couple years into "trying to learn" and I basically haven't learned much of anything.

So... Anyone know of any really good resources for guided learning of Fusion? I'm aware that there are many resources out there. I'm quite capable of googling long lists of them. I'm specifically interested in recommendations from anyone who found specific resources more helpful than others, especially from those who were learning 3D CAD for the first time. For some of the projects I have in mind to do over the next year or so it would definitely be best to model them first. It's time to learn how.
 
I dont know if this will help but when learning new software I find it best to start a simple project then try to get help for the first problem that I cant solve then go on to the next bit.
I find this speeds up the learning process so I have a limited handle of a lot of the simpler tasks I can do then the other more in-depth tutorials start to make more sense.
Its always much harder when you are moving from one you know to a whole new paradigm shift in thinking.
 
intjonmiller said:
So... Anyone know of any really good resources for guided learning of Fusion? I'm aware that there are many resources out there. I'm quite capable of googling long lists of them. I'm specifically interested in recommendations from anyone who found specific resources more helpful than others, especially from those who were learning 3D CAD for the first time. For some of the projects I have in mind to do over the next year or so it would definitely be best to model them first. It's time to learn how.
Click to expand...
I started watching the videos by Lars Christensen. He does a very good job of presenting Fusion in an easy to follow way. He has live sessions for instant feedback and he answers your questions about his You Tube videos. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo29kn3d9ziFUZGZ50VKvWA
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top