Teaching yourself CAD
Turbo Mini Forums

Anyone taught themselves CAD? i want to get some parts machined and would like to draw them out in CAD, there seems to be a number of programs to use that are cheap or free ie: sketchup and turbocad there is also emachine but i am not sure if you can export the files, but are they any good?

any recommendations?

I'm an AutoCAD user, but most programs have good tutorials built in that should teach you enough to be able to do basic drawings. To be honest though don't get too hung up on the CAD side, any machinist worth his salt can work just as well from a pencil and paper sketch as a CAD drawing.

I'm pretty much self taught in AutoCAD, albeit I got a quick 5 minute intro by a colleague before I started playing about with it.

Our cad lecturer at Uni was Spanish and (no disrespect to him!) didn't understand some strong Scottish accents at the time. I ended up pretty well teaching the whole of the group how to use it as he didn't understand what people were asking him! Got an A for that module!

I have cadkey. Easy program and there are versions that are easily hackable on the web... mine is a copy to.

you can do anything if you set your mind to it...
i rather blow it up winning than keep it together losing.

finish date set for project 1... march 2018

well it depends what kind you want to use 3d or 2d, well in most cases the software will have have both. But its worth while just watching tutorials that come with the program. Auto Cad have some good ones if not there are a lot of tutorials on youtube. At uni we use auto cad and inventor. If you are still in education you can get the programs for free on the auto desk website just by purely sating what educator you are attending if not previous. A surprising amount are free.

I like the idea of messing on a cad program...

There are some good tutorials on Youtube. I followed a chap who taught SolidWorks 2008 which I use when ever I want to draw something in 3D, or 2D sometimes.

I've been a ProE user for 16 years, and just found it easy to use for everything except 2D stuff. That said, the change to Creo kicked my arse for several weeks, but now, it's as easy as ever. I reckon it's probably easier to get into and use than solid works - but it depends on your mindset.

However.... I have recently had to learn AutoCad, and this seems very "odd" compared to everything I've ever done. At least I (now) know there are several users on here that I can ask the next time I can't get that supposedly simple stupid fucking arc fuction to work the way it should LOL

Edited by TurboDave16V on 19th Feb, 2014.

Hi,

I use Autocad, and i recently update it for 2014. It's very intuitive, the major problem i have in autocad is to emboss letters or writen text, the rest is simply my favorite drawing plantaform.

I learn to draw by miself reading tutorials and convencinal drawing manuals, some months later i did that...
you can follow Here

Don't give up at first attempt...




Diogo

Thanks guys, the thing with autocad is its so bloody pricey

I'm pretty proficient with NX, expensive if you get a legit copy, but its easy to download for free if you like. I found it was pretty easy to learn.
With any software knowing at least one other person who can use it is always helpful as it's normally much easier just to ask someone how to do something than to try and figure it out for yourself.
I have also used Solid Edge on an academic license, but that's a turd when compared to NX, it just seems so much less intuitive.

Ive heard of people using this free CAD software

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

I gave up after a few minutes lol

9.85 @ 145mph
202mph standing mile
speed didn't kill me, but taxation probably will