Thumbs up to DraftSight free 2D CAD software

Technical Ted

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I know this is old news to most, but I've been looking for a free 2D CAD program to use at home now that I'm retired. I used AutoCAD when I worked and wanted something that gave me that type of capability. Well, after discarding some programs I tried, I came across DraftSight. In functionality, it's a very close clone of AutoCAD Lite and I am very satisfied with it for my home use.

Just thought I'd throw this out in case someone else is looking for a very capable, powerful and easy to use free CAD application. You can work with .dwg files and most of the hotkeys and shortcuts are the same as AutoCAD.

http://www.3ds.com/products-services/draftsight-cad-software/

Have fun,
Ted
 
I have two seats of Draftsight Professional I use almost daily in my business. Highly recommend it!

Now, I've got to make the transition over to Solidworks! What a world of difference it is over 2D cad!
 
I am not an engineer. I tried to learn how to use Draftsight 2D CAD and gave up after trying off and on for about a year. Prior to that I had tried a 2D CAD program called Turbo CAD. I am usually pretty good at mastering computer programs and it is actually a little embarrassing that I was not able to master Draftsight. During this same time period I had been using Google Sketchup. I found Sketchup to be very easy to master. Using Sketchup for me was just like drawing with pencil and paper and you end up with a 3D model. Maybe this was the problem. I found Sketchup to be so easy to use that maybe I didn't try hard enough to master Draftsight.
Chuck
 
There's a user manual for DraftSight that may help some: http://www.3ds.com/fileadmin/PRODUCTS/DRAFT_SIGHT/PDF/GETTING-STARTED-GUIDE.pdf

Being retired and a hobby machinist I'm only looking for free programs. I was familiar with AutoCAD and DraftSight is so similar learning it wasn't an issue for me. I really would like a free 3D program to play with as well. I've played some with FreeCAD, but from my experience it doesn't seem to like to play in inch units well... metric is fine, but I couldn't get everything to display inch units correctly. I've downloaded a program called DesignSpark and hopefully will play with that some soon.

Any suggestions for a free 3D program (Windows 10) that will work well with DWG files in 2D as well?

Thanks,
Ted
 
For 3d I am currently learning Fusion 360 from Autodesk. It does not do 2d drawings (Other than to document the 3d models you create). For 2d I am using Draftsight. There are already a couple threads on Fusion 360 so I won't go into details here - just wanted to throw the information out to answer your question. Both are free to Hobbyists and the advantage of Fusion 360 over something like Sketchup is the built in CAM module, if you do CNC (I do).
 
Thanks for the heads up Dan! I downloaded it and am starting to play with it and learn. I don't do CNC work, just trying to do some 3D modeling and drawing. I was playing some with FreeCad, but my first impression is that Fusion 360 will be more to my liking.

Thanks!
Ted
 
I learned CAD on AutoCAD 12 in 1996. From what I can tell, DraftSight is not much different than that. I still remember text commands from 1996 that work today:

PEDIT: polyline edit, allows you to join lines to make one continuous profile,

CP = copy,

M = move,

C = circle,

Too many to list.

When I found this, I was thrilled!
 
Ask me...I'll probably be able to help!
 
How about a list of the keyboard commands. I miss using a few of them and don't remember them. At least I haven't looked too hard for them.
 
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