Cad Software.

I read some good things on another site about Cubify.

When I get my CNC mill running I'm going to purchase it. Price is right at $50. They also have a 14 day free trial.

http://cubify.com/en/Products/Invent
 
Lood said:
Thanks. I use Windows and long ago, I used to have Autocad Light installed on my desktop. I enjoyed working with Autocad LT. After that, I had Autocad Student, but I now find all the steps to go through before being able to download it, near impossible. Unfortunately, the pay versions of Autocad seem srather rediculous in price - just my opinion.
I only want to do simple 2D drawings of projects that I want make on the lathe and mill.
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As Karl_T mentions, DraftSight would probably be your best choice given your back ground. You can find it here - http://www.3ds.com/products-services/draftsight-cad-software/ and the free version is here - http://www.3ds.com/products-services/draftsight-cad-software/free-download/

It requires activation which will get you a reasonable amount of email from them wanting to upsell you along with some occasional useful information, so maybe no so bad as those things go. It's put out by Dessault Systems, the same folks that make SolidWorks and CATIA. The only thing I find lacking with DraftSight is they do not Import or Export IGES, but to be fair, neither did AutoCAD until a year or so ago.

Mark
 
Lood said:
Thanks. I use Windows and long ago, I used to have Autocad Light installed on my desktop. I enjoyed working with Autocad LT. After that, I had Autocad Student, but I now find all the steps to go through before being able to download it, near impossible. Unfortunately, the pay versions of Autocad seem srather rediculous in price - just my opinion.
I only want to do simple 2D drawings of projects that I want make on the lathe and mill.
Click to expand...

As Karl_T mentions, DraftSight would probably be your best choice given your back ground. You can find it here - http://www.3ds.com/products-services/draftsight-cad-software/ and the free version is here - http://www.3ds.com/products-services/draftsight-cad-software/free-download/

It requires activation which will get you a reasonable amount of email from them wanting to upsell you along with some occasional useful information, so maybe no so bad as those things go. It's put out by Dessault Systems, the same folks that make SolidWorks and CATIA. The only thing I find lacking with DraftSight is they do not Import or Export IGES, but to be fair, neither did AutoCAD until a year or so ago.

Mark
 
alloy said:
I read some good things on another site about Cubify.

When I get my CNC mill running I'm going to purchase it. Price is right at $50. They also have a 14 day free trial.

http://cubify.com/en/Products/Invent
Click to expand...

IMO, Cubify is a poor choice of software to use with anything beyond 3D printing. It is crippled software. If you look at the specs, while it will import STEP, IGES and SAT it will only export STL mesh files. It will not export industry standard solid formats that are used by most every other 3D CAD modeler out there. While the STL format is perfectly fine to use for 3D printing, beyond that it is considered a garbage format and is for all practical purposes a one way trip. That is to say, you can convert a solid into a mesh, but it is near impossible to convert a mesh back into the solid, at least with any shape beyond a simple cube. DesignSpark is crippled in the same way. You will probably be better served spending a bit more money going with a commercial package like Geomagic, (made by the same people that make the crippled Cubify), or maybe Rhino3D. On the free side, there is FreeCAD, which is the opposite of being crippled.
 
BRIAN said:
Have a look at Q CAD you can down load for free. so you can get the feel of it the full instruction book is cheap and teaches you from the very basics of drawing. You can the decide to get the pro version if you want, the cost is minimal.. I tried three others before Q CAD and all they did was confuse me

Mind you at the age of 74 that's not hard to do !!!

Brian
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Librecad is the fork of Q cad. I use Librecad, it does have some bugs though, but they are not detrimental.
 
I LOVE LibreCad - for former users of AutoCAD, it's a seemless transition. For others - not difficult at all -

I also use two other applications from SourceForge.net. Those people are great, they contribute their own time and provide us with really superior software for free ! (No connection other than a happy user of three different applications, used almost daily !)
 
Wow, thanks a lot for all the replies and advice! I downloaded DraftSight last night and started playing around with it a bit, drawing a rifle telescope spotlight mount, which I want to make for my son. I haven't read though it quick start guide or anything, but I did find it quite straight forward.
I check out some of the other over time and then select the one I am most comfortable with.
 
If you want to do artistic parts as well as machine parts I would have a look at Vetric cut 2d or Vetric Vcarve Pro both are real easy to get into using and if your feeling like pushing 3d try Vetric aspire, I have worked my way up to Aspire now and would not like to be without it, I feel the more you do the more you want to do, although a little pricy i think you get more for your money with it.


Phill
 
Another choice for free 2D CAD on Windows is solid edge - can be down loaded from the Solid Edge site. As a previously experienced AutoCAD user (company S/W) I find the free solid Edge has all the functionality I need for amateur 2D work.
 
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