Best cad for beginner

[Neale]

My apologies in advance if I'm teaching you to suck eggs. Always difficult to know where someone is coming from, but this is based on my own experience as a self-taught TurboCAD user moving to one of these flash new, parametric, sketch-based, 3D packages. I'm sure from odd comments made that there are some professional Solidworks users and the like out there who would think my comments a bit trivial, but there we are.

First, forget most of what you have learnt from 2D CAD. In general, this is like a power-operated pencil and drawing board. You draw lines of given lengths, join the ends, add circles and so on, using whatever drawing aids the package gives you. Then you add dimensions which reflect the lines as drawn.

F360 and friends do it differently. Think back of envelope sketching. I would have said back of fag packet, but you can't get the fag packets these days! Use the drawing tools provided (lines, rectangles, circles, etc) to roughly put in the geometry of the part you are drawing. Accuracy at this point is not needed - big difference from typical 2D CAD. Now, where you want points, hole centres, ends of lines, etc, to line up, use the "constraint" tools to do this. You can lock points together, force lines parallel/aligned, hole diameters equal, and so on. At this point, or maybe a bit earlier if it was appropriate, you can start adding in dimensions. But you are not "reading out" the dimensions you have drawn - you are putting in a dimension that forces the corresponding geometry to match that dimension. For example, you have sketched four holes in a component, and set each equal to the others. Add a dimension to one of them, and they will all automatically change to that value. Change your mind - you meant it to be M5 clearance, not M4 clearance - so edit that one dimension and all holes change to match. This ability to lock drawing elements together is very powerful, but it doesn't come naturally if you are used to drawing "the old way".

Once you have your "sketch", appropriately dimensioned, etc, you can extrude it to give a 3D component. You can now select any face of that object as the base plane for the next sketch - maybe a new, mating, component or maybe just another part of the first. In F360, for example, you would select "new body" or "join" when you do the extrude accordingly.

It does take a bit of getting used to, and of course there are many more subtle factors to take into account when drawing - identifying symmetries in the part so you only draw one half then mirror it, using the pattern tools for multiple features like hole layouts, etc - but for me, the big hurdle was that first one of understanding that you add basic elements to the drawing as rough sketches, then add constraints and dimensions to force the final design. Once you get this concept sorted, it is really useful to be able to go back to a drawing, make one change, and watch all dependent parts of the drawing (or subsequent assembly of parts) change to match.

Finally, it really does help if you can look over a more experienced user's shoulder while they talk you through an example - that's how I climbed the first part of the learning curve.

[brumster]

I agree. One challenge that can throw people at first is that you really do have to forward think how you're approaching the work (ok, you have to do that with any design) *but* the beauty is that it's always real easy to go back and change things with the parametric approach.... *IF* you haven't overly-constrained your design. So my advice would be to really keep the constraints down; don't over-spec the drawings beyond what you need. Trust the software to work it out; define things like centre-lines on your face early on and then work from that, for example, as the driving dimension.

kingcreaky, if you want a demo/lesson in Onshape I can at least help you with that - maybe it will lend across to F360 easily too.... ;)

[MikeyC38]

My apologies in advance if I'm teaching you to suck eggs. Always difficult to know where someone is coming from, but this is based on my own experience as a self-taught TurboCAD user moving to one of these flash new, parametric, sketch-based, 3D packages. I'm sure from odd comments made that there are some professional Solidworks users and the like out there who would think my comments a bit trivial, but there we are....

I have to agree with Neale here, I too am a TurboCAD user and pound-for-pound it has got to be one of the best value packages around (see an example of my use of it here ).
Whatever you do, there will be a learning curve and with some packages it is steeper than others. It took me about 3 months of regular evening use to get comfortable and the biggest help is good tutorial material. For TurboCAD, Don Cheke has brilliant key-by-key tutorials and for me this was money well-spent as it shortened the learning curve dramatically. The program supports 40 different CAD file import and export formats. When I sent the design to my cousin who uses CREO PTC, the step files I created imported perfectly!

All my designs are pretty much in 3D these days and I can produce 2D projections when I need to print dimensioned drawings for manufacture etc.

I'm waiting until I've 1) Finished building my CNC machine and 2) Earned so real money with it before investing in Solidworks. But hey I can dream!

Regards
Mike Campbell

[Boyan Silyavski]

I would definitely recommend you learn a parametric CAD and avoid like hell programs that will not use solids. And dedicate a couple of weeks to learn from a book the basics and principles of parameter drawing, it will pay very fast in the long run.

Siemens programs are the best and all other copy or started by copying them.

Some programs have strong communities which is also a big +, cause there you can download models etc.

Sketchup /neither solid or parametric/ was the program i used when i started a couple of years ago, and i was used to recommend it as its very easy to learn. Now learning NX from an year, i see i started to sketch faster in NX. Further more Sketch up has some inherent problems and is buggy and slow with big models even if the PC is extra strong it can not use its resources. So big NO to Sketchup.

For sign making you can not avoid a dedicated program, as it speeds up things considerably.


PS. Thanks for the info about Turbocad. Just downloading it to try it. It seems quite interesting from videos on Youtube i have just seen

[cropwell]

Sketch up has some inherent problems and is buggy and slow with big models even if the PC is extra strong it can not use its resources. So big NO to Sketchup.

I am going to echo that. I use it for 3D printing and for small, easy stuff, it is OK-ish, but unless you pay for the pro version you can't export DXF and that cuts it off from CAM programs in the main. My experience of the free Sketchup Make doesn't make me want to spend good money on the upgrade. TurboCAD seems to be pushed at the exhibitions, so I will probably have a more serious look at it and then try it at a show.

Cheers,

Rob

[Neale]

I'm starting to regret mentioning TurboCAD - that's the product that I have more-or-less abandoned in favour of Fusion 360, even when I'm only wanting to do 2D drawing. While it's fine as a 2D tool, I've tried a few times to work through the 3D features and gave up when I found that I needed to start at the beginning every time I went back to it. And the parametric and history features of these newer-generation 3D tools are really useful. I have lost count the number of times I have wanted to update a TurboCAD drawing and found it easier to start again where a similar change in F360 would be a couple of clicks and entering a new dimension - and all the dependent parts would change at the same time. If you are used to using TurboCAD I don't want to knock it - the illustrations on the box suggest that it's possible to do some great drawing with it - but if you are starting from scratch, it might be worth looking elsewhere and at least for 3D, have a shorter learning curve.

But this is one man's view, and one who runs an MDF-built router at that, so take that into account when choosing!

[MikeyC38]

You've got to use Turbo CAD Pro (preferably Pro Platinum) as it has the full ASCIS 3D solid modelling engine and the Lightworks rendering engine. Again look at my previous post for the quality of modelling and rendering you can do with it. I agree that the parametric CAD tools such as Solidworks are easier to use - but I don't have £7000 + £1200 pa for a maintenance contract! I modelled my CNC using TurboCADS solid modelling tools using version 15 of Pro Platinum product which I got the Model Engineer show for less than £100! I recently upgraded to version 21 of the Pro Platinum product for £149! You don't have to get the latest version either - contact Paul Tracey at his website https://paulthecad.com/ for the best prices.

Regards
Mike

[Neale]

I've been using Pro v19, having also upgraded via a copy bought at the ME show a few years back. My problem isn't that great results aren't possible - clearly, they are - but that I personally find it very difficult to use in 3D. Where in Fusion 360 I can just click on the face of an object to set the drawing plane, I have struggled to do the equivalent with TCAD. Add in parametric and history features, plus the fact (for me as a hobby user) F360 is free, and my personal decision was easy. But it may just be that I have completely missed something fundamental that would have allowed me to make progress with TurboCAD.

I think that we are living through interesting times where the guys originally responsible for Solidworks have brought out OnShape, Autodesk have brought out Fusion 360, and both are likely to change the cost and availability model of these kinds of tools over time. Commercial users may see things differently - while the licences are expensive, powerful tools that do everything and are fully supported mean more productivity, maybe - but as a home user, I'm happy to grab what I can while it lasts!