New Forum for CAD?

[silverfox]

There seems to be a lot on here who have several levels of expertise with the various prgrammes available.
Me, i am just getting out of the swamp with DraftSight and would like to know more so i can 'cycle without the stabilisers' and nor always rely on peoples assistance.
Do you think it would be a good move to have a dedicated spot on here so all the questions etc an be in one place?, rather than searching down the Gen Chat to see if something is there?

[pault]

Gets my vote, have been doing 2D CAD for years but I plan to make the jump to 3D over a long Christmas holiday so will probably need some help

[peteh]

Gets my vote as well. I am a draughtsman by trade, although only 2D is required and we use an old version of Autocad (2008!). I have look at draftsite, and for the money (free for non business use) it is excellent.

[Roger]

I started a thread some time ago called "CNC/CAD/CAM terminology and techniques" some time ago. That had a reasonable amount of interest, but unless there's a specific sub-category in the main menu of topics, any pause in postings makes the thread slide out of view and it dies.

I'm in favour of a separate heading for this so that all these things can be grouped together. For me CAM is an integral part of the process, but unless you have CNC it's probably not of much interest. It does massively increase the usefulness of CAD though, so maybe it's better to leave that in.

[Lisa]

I've dabbled a bit with CAD, never done anything useful with it though, so this would be interesting to me.

I also thought we could do with a projects/builds subforum, rather than having those threads in general chat where they inevitably drop back into forgotten pages.

[jon38r80]

I'd be interested, it's the interesting techniques that Roger employs and the cnc conversion thread that dugred put up in 'tools' that got me interested in this forum in the first place even though I'm not in to steam modeling

[ejparrott]

Gets my support.

Something else I've been thinking about it having a board for the project threads separate from the general board. Keep all the build threads together, keep the general questions separate. It'd be a bit easier to find your thread when you're trying to read it!

[silverfox]

OK mods how about it, looks like its got legs, and i have one question already to go on it!

[Donald G]

Gets my vote as well.

I was a deseigner on the drawing board, then went onto CAD using Autocad. Once retired and a new PC which would not support the Autocad program, I changed to Draftsight 2D and have been using it since shortly after it was offered free on the web. I love it and use it all the time.

I am also thinking of trying 3D, tried briefly 2 years ago and struggled possibly because it was a free 3D program.

[hudson]

Did anyone try or better use Autodesk Fusion 360?


Thank you for your replys.

Hudson

[stan]

Hi Hudson
I have downloaded Fusion 360 and have got it to work, I had problems at first but they are very helpful the problem was in Windows you have to change the Direct x to 9 it wont work in any higher version but I cant get my head round it .
Stan

[silverfox]

Well
Here is my small prob

I have been sent a file of my Main Frames that Malcolm drew from my hand drawn design.

How do i get the dimensions to be shown. also applies to mudgaued plans hat need to be alteed to fit my frames.

Siple instructions
eg
Pointer on X click on Y etc

Thanks


Ron

[Midland]

This is an old thread but covers the subject. After corresponding with one of our most competent members (thanks Bob), he has persuaded me to look at this CAD business. I have no background in drawing or designing, never had a drawing board and only found about a 'third projection' thing a short time ago. I can however follow the drawings in the Wild Swan books so I am not completely stupid, just well on the way.

So the question is which CAD program does one start with and does one do 2D or 3D. The reason of course is to try to produce a loco that is more realistic rather than some of simple ones shown in currently available drawings.

I do appreciate that when you ask three model engineers a question one gets four different answers but I am tossing my hat in the ring with the hope of a consensus!!!!!
Cheers David

[peteh]

Given that you have no previous cad experience I personally would recommend you go straight to 3d cad (fusion 360 is free). I am a professional drafty in the town planning field and we only use 2D. Try as I may I could not get the hang of fusion 360 at all as it did not follow the same 'logic' as it were of Autocad itself. Once you have 3d under your belt you have opened up the whole field of additive (3d printing) and subtractive (CNC) options to your arsenal of tool options.

[mattb]

Go straight to 3D the benefits are worth the extra time required to learn it. Like Pete I would advise Fusion360, its from one of the top CAD companies and has excellent support both from them and online 3rd parties. It is available free to non professionals just download the software and select the free licence option. I use PTC CREO/Pro Engineer at work and have a copy at home however all my hobby work is now done only in Fusion 360. The ability to create 3D models, 2D drawings, Analysis, rendering and CAM in Fusion 360 is fantastic.

Matt

[92220]

I don't know what 3D CAD is available but I would agree, with peteh, that going straight to 3D is the best option.

IF there is a system that just does 3D solid modelling like in the old AutoCAD2004, that I used, It's brilliantly easy. I couldn't get Fusion 360 to work, but I had also been tunnel visioned by AutoCAD2004. The advantage of that system was that you chose various solid shapes from a menu, such as cylinder, cube, cone, etc. and you could easily specify their sizes and then move them together and then joint them into one object. You could make up another object in exactly the same way, to represent the portion to be cut away by a milling cutter, position it accordingly and subtract. Hey presto you have a fully machined shape. As easy as that. You could then change the 3D version from 'Model space' to 'Paper space' and you automatically had 2D views in 3rd angle projection. Dimensioning was easy too in either metric or imperial or both on the same dimension line. Does anyone know of a 3D system that works that way. I can't use my old Acad2004 because the licence ran out and they won't renew it as there is no AutoCAD support for that version now.

Bob.

[Midland]

Hi Bob

Followed your advice and tried to download this Fusion 360 thing and all I got was that my operating system is not supported. I have windows 10 32 bit and they want a 64 bit computer. My laptop work just fine for everything else so I am not going to change computers. I suppose I will have to find it on ebay as you suggested!!!!
David

[jools]

Is anyone using Fusion360 in windows 10 ?

I have used AutoCAD for 2D schematics for nearly 30 years now so its second nature. I upgraded to 2016LT version last year but it kept crashing in Windows 10, which had been installed just prior, and looking online at the other complaints I eventually stripped my PC back down to Windows 7 and its been stable since.

I downloaded Fusion360 and followed some of the tutorials but my version appears subtly different as some of the command pull downs and processes do not follow the tutorials at times. Fusion appears to be from the makers of AutoCAD so many of the commands are common, which helps.

[coniston]

Just joining this thread as an ex 3D professional user and now home user. I tried Fusion 360 but although professionally trained on ProEngineer and Solidworks jut could not get on with fusion. So downloaded 'FreeCAD' just as it says it's free. it is open source software so gets regular updates. Does most that other software does. In 3D you can either create parts using sketches or using geometric solids like cylinders, cubes, cones etc. with plenty of youtube tutorials it is just a case of trawling through them and learning as you go. For me it is useful as I create 3D printable models. The only drawback is I have found it not as stable a software as I would like so just keep saving iterations of the model so I can go back without losing too much. One of my aims is to design a new set of valve gear for my Halton Tank using a simulator then 3D CAD model it to be 3D printed to prove the design in practise before cutting metal. I like the idea of a separate forum subject just for 3D CAD as it keeps it in one place and then separate threads for individual topic. just like model engineering there are so many topics that can be of interest.

Chris

[sis]

Hi,

I am just getting started on 3D cad. Fusion 360 is free so trying is low risk. I found that by following beginner youtube videos I got up and running and there is a lot of help out there.

It was painful at first but now I am getting there. I am doing simple parts and assemblies easily enough with a view to exporting them for laser cutting. I do more complex 3D as part of any workshop tooling I make, both as an exercise and to be able to improve the design, find errors on drawings, or make an easier to read drawing.

I am doing some wheels as an exercise which is more difficult without 3D cad. The wheel as Roger explained to me is not the simplest thing to do but I am finding it is not that hard to do in terms of the software. It is more difficult to do in terms of if you don't have a decent works drawing to refer to it would be hard on any package so that is where the knowledge of what is possible with the software and how to approach things kicks in to make it easier.

Regarding building a loco the immediate benefit I have found already is I've spotted and corrected errors in the drawings and I've been able to calculate missing dimensions. It is making me realise if I draw up a lot more parts to check for errors before I order from the laser cutter I will save money.

All the above means I wish I had started on 3D cad years ago.

Good luck,
Steve