What's your favorite CAD software?

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Started learning CAD with Fusion 360 - free so long as you are either enterprise (below a certain turnover level) or personal use.

Got a couple of ideas for things to model but I have no access to 3D printing and I just know what SWMBO would say if I went out and bought a 3D printer!
 
For physical stuff (3d printing, laser cutting) I like Sketchup. For electronic circuits and PCBs, I like Autodesk Eagle. The free version of Eagle is a little limited if you're trying to do anything complicated though.
 
I use AutoCad and Inventor.
 
For physical stuff (3d printing, laser cutting) I like Sketchup. For electronic circuits and PCBs, I like Autodesk Eagle. The free version of Eagle is a little limited if you're trying to do anything complicated though.
Even the Low-Cost versions of Eagle are (at least were last time I looked) somewhat arbitrarily limited. Check out KiCAD - free and pretty darn capable.
 
Even the Low-Cost versions of Eagle are (at least were last time I looked) somewhat arbitrarily limited. Check out KiCAD - free and pretty darn capable.
I tried kicad before Eagle actually. It works but it almost seems deliberately kludgy. Very frustrating, but I guess eventually people get used to it. Kinda reminds me of VI. Horrible design, but everyone is so used to VI that the functionality persists decades later. I bet there will still be VI clones in y3k.
 
I use Revit, AutoCAD and Fusion360 at work. For 3D printer modeling at home, I use Windows 3D builder or even Tinker CAD. Once you get the hang of it, they are very effective at rendering quality prints. And you can do it on a tablet or laptop sitting on the couch.
 
Well this is a well hidden sub...

But in answer to the OP's question: Right now Fusion360, its the right mix of features and price (compared to Inventor or Solidworks it crazy cheap for what you get).

For reference, I've shipped products designed in Creo (the thing that replaced Pro-Engineer, which used to be the serious product CAD program for serious projects, before Solidworks became the hot new thing), in Autodesk Inventor (mostly because I got a couple of free licenses and I needed real sheet metal tools on the cheap). Then I switched to Fusion (when Autodesk broke my Inventor license), which has improved a lot over the years. I pay for it these days, because I'm using it for commercial projects.
Plus some Eagle work too (I've used a FOS alternative and it was even more excruciating than Eagle, which says a lot).

I never really got on with OnShape, the whole browser based interface was annoying to me. But I'm kind of a power user. That and I'd be paying for it right away as I'm working on stuff I don't want to/can't share with the public.

I do like the way that Fusion can handle nesting assemblies. I build fairly complicated things and being able to break it up really helps organize things. A single assembly with 150 parts in it becomes a bit hard to navigate. Its a lot simpler if you can break it into 'modules'. I know other software can do similar things, but Fusion seems a good balance between cloud and local.
I've not used any of the really complicated stuff like SiemensNX, or the more simple tools like TinkerCAD (although I feel old, as I met the creators way back when it was a new tool, before they got bailed out by Autodesk).
I know TinkerCAD is fairly easy to learn, but the planning and structuring that a 'real' CAD tool requires makes you a better designer long term. But I suppose its a matter of how complicated are the parts you are going to design and how much time are you willing to spend on it. I looked at Shapr (or whatever its called, its an ipad based thing), and while I like the idea of being able to design from a tablet on the sofa, I know that I need real parametric design. Maybe they will do an iOS version of Fusion one day (not going to hold me breath though!).

And for additional reference, I design 3D printers and other mechanical bits of nonsense.

Re: Slicers, last time I checked, none of them actually calculate extrusion volume correctly, that's part of why your ID's come out too small. Its not so much 'calibrating' the slicer, as the slicer is just flat out doing the math wrong, there are ways to compensate, but that then tends to throw other things off. Last time I stuck my oar in to that my team invented a new style of infill and some big important people got all shirty about it, so I gave up telling people they were wrong.
With that, if I need an accurate fit, I drill or ream the part. FDM is about 'acceptable' tolerances, not 'good'.
 
I'm a bit of a weirdo, I make almost everything in OpenSCAD. It's a fully parametric code-based 3D modeling language. The big advantage is that you can set up all the dimensions to be based on a couple variables, so you can easily change fundamental aspects of a model with a single tweak. Say changing every screw in a design to a larger size, allowing for the larger holes, screw heads, and lengths. It's got a steep learning curve, but it's incredibly powerful, especially when you add in a couple libraries.
 
I'm using FreeCAD for Windows.
I've been a little frustrated with FreeCAD because the way I thing how to design and compound a part sometimes collide with the philosophy of FreeCAD, leading to errors and parts that are not manifold.
I've tried also Fusion360, but I cannot get to the way it works. Perhaps I have already worked a lot with FreeCAD and I'm familiarized with the way it works.
Also INVENTOR, but I cannot find the same tools that FreeCAD has.
 
Just discovered this hidden-by-depth subforum, so I'm gonna be "that guy" and revive a semi-dormant thread.

I "grew up" on AutoCAD. A lot of features (namely keyboard shortcuts) I still wish other programs would get on board with. That said, I never much liked Fusion360 for parametric modeling, so AutoCAD is my go-to for 2d electrical diagrams and "as built" documentation for gas/fiber/electrical schematics...with "schematics" being a very generous term for "I put lines on paper so any idiot can figure out how A connected to B."

I'm now using PTC Creo (formerly ProEngineer) for work. I'm getting more and more used to it. Initially I hated it. As I get more familiar, there's a lot I actually love about it. Their back-end PDM/PLM software (Windchill) deserves to rot in hell, as far as I'm concerned. But the modeling space is...decent. Like I said, there's a lot I love, but there's also a ton that's just needlessly convoluted.

To the title of the thread: Solidworks. Hands down, I love Solidworks. It's got some limitations, but for basic modeling and assemblies, it's just painfully easy to use. The only time I've run into issues were when I started getting assemblies up beyond ~3,500-4,000 components, and that may well just be driven by maxing out my computer's hardware. I enjoy Solidworks enough that I went through their certifications during slow times at work, and have most of the certifications they offer. I've never found a need for surfacing, so that's foreign to me. Same with injection molds, though I'm interested to learn a bit about that just because I'm curious (username, eh?). The really amazing thing to me, which the process of getting the certifications kind of highlighted to me, is how seamless it is to leverage other tools without changing anything about the software. Creating a weldment frame, then a formed and stamped sheetmetal enclosure, and designing required components top-down from there is an easy process.

I'm going to stop nerding out now. If anybody's ever in a pinch and needs Solidworks (or general CAD) help, I'm happy to lend a hand if I can :D
 

Back
Top Bottom