I am currently looking for some Cad software to produce basic drawings and export to cam software(one CNC ) to produce basic parts

Needs to fairly easy to use( novice) and not as expensive as SW.

anything recommended ?

Fusion 360

Free CAD CAM software. Excellent online learning resources.

Highly recommended.

Draftsight is good (and free) for 2D stuff. Pretty much a simplified Autocad clone.

Ding dong.

Not quite the same panache when it’s software.

Both of the ones suggested above are great. Draftsight if you’re just doing 2D/2.5D stuff. It has some brilliant (but sometimes poorly documented) features that let you draw stuff very fast. The PDF tutorial Dassault put together felt a bit weird to me, because I was picking the software up to send designs to machines, but they wrote it as if you’re going to be printing out a big drawing to send down to an engineering department.

Fusion 360 is a bit more complicated, but will handle 3D and parametric design. It’s easily the closest free thing I’ve seen to SolidWorks.

If you’re a student (or someone in your house is) you can get Catia Student (SolidWorks big brother) for free until the end of the month.

Fusion 360 is good, not used it for designing but to produce nc code. Its a good post processor that dan make programs for lots of machines.
When it starts being abld to do 5 axis tool paths then Delcam will get the boot, note Autodesk has recently bought DelCAM.

fusion360 is good, very easy to learn.

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This is good. Very SW like and very intuitive.

I’ve not used it much, but Onshape seems really promising. It’s free until you want to have more than 10 files not accessible by the general public.

Designed by the guys that founded Solidworks, so if you’ve ever used that then it feels quite intuitive.

B

I use SW in work but Onshape is brilliant for home use. In some ways it’s improved on SW. Well worth a look if only for the cheesy support emails

Onshape could well be the future, I’d be using it iif I was a bit more adaptable and didn’t already have my own Solidworks license. Because it’s free and online you can easily share models with other people whether they’re cad literate or not. I’m not sure I’d look anywhere else.

I was a solidworks user since 1995 and before that pro e when it ran on SGi

personally i would look at fusion and bin one cnc off all together wether you own it or not, you will find fusion has a cam system builtin based on HSM works and it will run very large circles around One cnc ,

Fusion is a 230 a year or you can use it per month and pay on and off as you require

problem with onshape is its cloud based but free to a degree

the primary advantage of onshape was that it runs in any browser on any pc even a phone , you dont need fancy hardware (big high end graphics etc) but heres the rub sometimes any of the browser makers change something and it blows up in your face which when your paying for it and your business stops isn’t so funny (of course other software also goes off reservation so ) secondly you cant fully work offline with it so if you have poor internet again you struggle (read stop)and it completely negated one of onshpes advantages of it all being remotely done

Same applies with fusion but they can cache offline till your back connected all the calculations and processing isnt being done in a server somewhere

solidworks i have just abandoned myself till they pull their head out of their arse and stop mugging people

Built in CAM systems don’t mean jack if the post processors don’t stack up. Simple 2.5 D milling is easy enough to edit but anything complex and you’re screwed

Thank you for all the replies, even the suggesting one suggesting to replace the £3k one cnc software I bought earlier in the year..

now to have a play

I do some work for a reasonably well known cam seller if I didn’t I couldn’t afford the 10k they charge for their software I’m lucky I do their suppprt ,post processors and support are a significant way just like solid works charge 1500 a year of lining their coffers and I’m charged out at 600 quid a day to go on site which would cover the entire cost of you one CNC in a week

Those figures are a general rule of thumb and pretty common As a solid works user who just dropped maintenance I can also say if you don’t take out the maintenance every year next year’s software will cost you the full price of 5k so you have also to factor in those costs

I have no idea what maintenance costs or what one CNC charge for upgrades but even if it’s 500 quid your still going to save a lot of money over the next 5 years even as a one m as n band

In light of all this and if I had to start from scratch my suggestion is based on what I would do having been both a user and seen how the stuff gets sold, these **** would sell their grandma for a sale 3k is down the back of the sofa mlney

Ps I just looked at the one CNC www all three big cam vendors will do the 2 and 2.5 axis for free unless your doing tons of surfacing tool paths then you don’t even have to pay for the CAM and there’s a massive hsm, delcam ,solid cam user base who will be using and tweaking posts for no money

We use Solidworks and fusion 360 as well as all the usual variations of AutoCAD but we’re in the process of moving to Onshape.

The above comments about it all going tits up if a browser changes are unfounded, it’s not built on some architecture that’s likely to change without notice and even if it did it’s 30 seconds to install a new browser. As for patchy Internet, does that even happen any more? Having all my designs and software on one expensive desktop machine at my desk is far more limiting than the quality of Web connection.

Both fusion 360 and Onshape are lacking in some features though, Solidworks is far more comprehensive, it’s just in a bloated sluggish and overly expensive package.

Maybe look at sketchup too.

Oh and Solidworks is “only” 1500 a year plus the 5k one off seat but if you cancel support and want to rejoin within 5 years they back charge you for the years you missed.

Mick, will fusion do 4 axis (I got a 4th on the haas) and do they have posts?

Really unfounded why did it actually happen then podge and take 3 weeks to resolve

Obviosly the internet is patchy you can get a change from one end of a factory to the next if you ever move from being sat a desk in an office you would know tjis 🙄

We’re you using a supported browsers to start with? Was the software still in beta testing? Did you install another browser to fix it? I find it hard to believe that you were working fine then then every browser changed and it all broke. A quick Google doesn’t seem to throw up any other instances of this being a problem.

Podge no I dont work for onshape where did i say that? the company does a cam plugin for it though and its the same one I use in my actual CNC shop you know where ineed to make a living when I’m down there ill make sure I ring you up so you can google it and resolve it for them though because everything gets put on google doesnt it to satisfy your curiosity

sheesh do you have to post every support mail just so the mighty **** podge accepts it.

Yeah, the Internet isn’t quite as strong in some parts of the factory but I can’t operate Solidworks from the other end of my desk because my arms aren’t long enough so Web based stuff still wins there.

The major reason for moving to a Web system is so I can move away from my desk more and show the shop floor what they are supposed to be doing with greater ease… Insert patronising smiley here.

Mick, will fusion do 4 axis (I got a 4th on the haas) and do they have posts?

I dont know Re their posts yet, Im just getting into it myself but tend to start off with iso fanuc I know it doesnt do 5 axis you need to step up to inventor HSM 10ks worth Im just looking at a HAAS someone offered me cheap I was about to buy a lot of Samsung Lathe (live milling ,sub spindle, the lot) either way you can change it to event based through the post it seems

it does seem also like they changed the solidworks policy and backpedalled a bit on the 1st of january ,your still knackered if its a small business with less than 10 seats though or have any ambition of using a cam package which will fall off support in 3 years

You didn’t say you worked for them, Where did I say you worked for them?

Thanks for the ninja edit too, makes my reply look arsey out of context.

Knickers in a twist this morning?

I find it hard to believe that you were working fine

sorry i misread this as “I find it hard to believe that you were working for them”

Knickers in a twist this morning?

No I get really **** irate (see red) when anyone defends the shysters at solidworks now , so whilst im trying to seem unbiased , its based on the little companies being forced into getting the scraps off the plates knowing full well what happens on the flip side,

my only good experience this year has been the fusion support from other users and not having to speak with the software guys plugging products in a market far morally worse than estate agents….

I opened this thread thinking there’d be a load more interesting posts about CAD, but it’s just two guys having an argument. Oh well.

I opened this thread thinking there’d be a load more interesting posts about CAD, but it’s just two guys having an argument. Oh well.

well done for adding the usual STW sarky little bell aspect to it though .

I’m not a big fan of Solidworks either, installed 2017 this week and had a load of problems, support told me I shouldn’t install anything till at least service pack 1… They also suggested reverting back to 2016 but by then I’d saved loads of legacy parts as 17 and the software isn’t backwards compatible. We pay 1.5k for this level of service.

No one has mentioned Solid Edge, similar functionality and price to Solidworks and I liked it for the 5 or so years I used it but being similar people tend to just buy Solidworks instead.

People arguing on the Internet and you’re surprised nach? You must be new.

I use Draftsight for 2D which is free and pretty straightforward. Lets you export in any format to send to machinery.

I don’t do any 3D stuff but the guys who do im my office, and our design department use Solidworks.

Inventor. Not sure what it costs but it’s pretty easy to pick up.

I decided to buy fusion in the end as I tend to get sent models from customers.

I taught myself to model a basic shape, produce 2d drawing and machine a tool path in about 6 hours with the aid of online tutorials so fairly easy to pick up.

main downside for me is I cant seem to import a decent title block to display logo and tolerances on the drawings

Solid Edge is smashing (IMHO). You can get 2D free. You can get the full 3D on a months trial. You can rent it by the month SE subscription

Experienced user of pro engineer, catia, solid works and solid edge.

I have settled on edge for my design guys. Great software and great support. Scalable too so it’s reasonable for a basic design and drafting license but you can buy the usual bolt ons to expand capability/functionality.

Pro engineer is the devils work. Totally totally shit….in my professional opinion 🙂