Free 3D Cad software - good stuff!!!

[guest325]

http://www.designspark.com/eng/page/mechanical

[Britishguy]

nice find,

i heard this one is good too

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

[secretman]

if you guy';s need complete desing and programing cnc software tell me i can do something for you... but pm me...

[guest325]

nice find,

i heard this one is good too

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

Yes, it is - I use it for any 2D stuff I need to do or occasionally to brush up on isometric sketching (for illustration purposes only).

[Britishguy]

id love some at some point, just to to get my head around it lol

[guest325]

id love some at some point, just to to get my head around it lol

If you look on YouTube there are some very good tuition vids, I';ll have a look and see if I can point them out to you. There is also a downloadable pdf file of the manual for it, see if I can point it out for you as well.
Search on YouTube for ';Cad Tutorials'; - lots of useful vids there.
And here is the manual:
http://www.solidworks.com/sw/products/draftsight-getting-started-guide.htm

[Britishguy]

thanks mate, appreciate it

[guest325]

thanks mate, appreciate it

No problem at all - I know how frustrating it can be when you first start using it.

[hotrodspike]

If you';re a student or academic staff, you can download any of the Autodesk software packages. I';ve got AutoCad 2014 and Inventor Professional 2014 but I could have had any of them I wanted.
I';ve been using Draftsight for a couple of years now, it';s made by the same people as Solidworks and Catia (Dassault Systeme).

[guest325]

I use SolidWorks, but have used most of the mainstream 3D CAD software for many years starting from Cadds5; I liked Catia and ProE but the cost of them for a small company is prohibitive; I';ve not used Inventor but was put off Autodesk stuff by 3D AutoCad, anyone who has used it will know what I mean!

[Britishguy]

great thanks and yes i was

[spiff]

I use SolidWorks, but have used most of the mainstream 3D CAD software for many years starting from Cadds5; I liked Catia and ProE but the cost of them for a small company is prohibitive; I';ve not used Inventor but was put off Autodesk stuff by 3D AutoCad, anyone who has used it will know what I mean!

I used Cadds 4x (unix) back in the early 90';s. Was I bit of a over kill for what we were doing.
Also used their PD package which run on a pc.
How did you find Cadds 5?

[guest325]

I used Cadds 4x (unix) back in the early 90';s. Was I bit of a over kill for what we were doing.
Also used their PD package which run on a pc.
How did you find Cadds 5?

I think i made a booboo, it was before PTC took over so it was most likely Cadds 4, it was in the late 80';s early 90';s when I used it; at the time it was very good but looking back now SolidWorks is just so much easier to use for what I use it for.
I remember quite vividly seeing a ProE demo showing David Brown Tractors using ProE for crankshaft design and being able to drive the design from a spreadsheet, it was amazing stuff at the time!

[spiff]

I think i made a booboo, it was before PTC took over so it was most likely Cadds 4, it was in the late 80';s early 90';s when I used it; at the time it was very good but looking back now SolidWorks is just so much easier to use for what I use it for.
I remember quite vividly seeing a ProE demo showing David Brown Tractors using ProE for crankshaft design and being able to drive the design from a spreadsheet, it was amazing stuff at the time!

yip Cadds4x was powerful stuff. not that user friendly. still got the instruction manuals somewhere. started with solidworks in 97 think it was called solidworks97. never liked ProE.

one thing I do regret is down grading from a Sun Vision Sparc station to a pc

[andythilo]

I use sketchup for my 3D drawings. Very intuitive. I use AutoCad 2010 for any 2D stuff as its very simple.

[guest325]

one thing I do regret is down grading from a Sun Vision Sparc station to a pc

100% with you there,  Sun workstations were the mutts, did you run onunix or solaris? IIt';s what gave me my interest/fascination with linux, them being so alike. That aside risc processors were pretty revolutionary at the time and quite rightly so!

[powerlord]

There is a student version of Solidworks too (should be able to buy for your child,  etc).  When I was doing stubilizer I researched and tested about 30 different cad packages before settling with SW. It';s awesome.  And actually pretty easy to use.  I use it for everything now. 

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[spiff]

100% with you there,  Sun workstations were the mutts, did you run onunix or solaris? IIt';s what gave me my interest/fascination with linux, them being so alike. That aside risc processors were pretty revolutionary at the time and quite rightly so!

damn trying to recall what it was - I think it was solaris. found my cadds4x and PD5 manuals but not the Sparc station manuals.

[barneyg]

Heh ... still got an Ultra 2 in the cupboard.  I used to work for Sun in Linlithgow

[guest325]

damn trying to recall what it was - I think it was solaris. found my cadds4x and PD5 manuals but not the Sparc station manuals.

We ran Unix because a lot of the business side of the company I was working for at the time was on Unix, tbh I had a go on a Solaris machine when I did the training and could tell the difference, I suppose it was because the Solaris OS was what their workstations were designed to run on.

[spiff]

Heh ... still got an Ultra 2 in the cupboard.  I used to work for Sun in Linlithgow

good stuff :)

[spiff]

We ran Unix because a lot of the business side of the company I was working for at the time was on Unix, tbh I had a go on a Solaris machine when I did the training and could tell the difference, I suppose it was because the Solaris OS was what their workstations were designed to run on.

must say we were setup on a novell network back then with 10 other designers and what a pleasure - never had network issues ever! it never froze, crashed or got viruses! but like I said when I switched over to my first MS Dos 386 pc then I realized what crap is!