I have been using a freeware program called A9CAD for my drafting needs. It does the basics for 2D drawings. A few days ago I decided to get going on my bike light project again and started a new drawing for one of the parts. It is a cover which has radiused edges and corners. The way I've been handling the radii is to draw them in as arcs. It works, but it takes a lot of time because it's very easy to make a mistake. The arc center has to be offset the correct amount from each edge, and the beginning and end angles for the radius are different at each corner.
There's a feature called "fillets" in the program. I'm not sure if it would replace what I've been doing. Probably I will never find out. As with a number of other issues, the help system covered the topic at a very basic level. My efforts to follow along did not succeed. A web search didn't produce much help either. Possibly this part of the program doesn't function correctly, but there's no way to find out.
This is the fundamental problem I keep running into: the program seems to have all the parts I should need to do an acceptable job, but the instructions at times are opaque, and the online help just doesn't go into enough detail for me to sort out what I'm doing wrong. There do not appear to be enough users posting on-line to make support through the internet useful.
I decided to invest some time and effort into something with more support. I downloaded a demo of Cubify. It may or may not end up being the right program for me. I'm not sure I need to draw 3d and I'm far from being able to draw anything useful. My initial attempt to just click on the things that seemed to be what I wanted went nowhere fast.
But, now that I've decided I need to work through at least the initial parts of the included tutorial, I feel like I'm making progress. Terms that are not clear can be searched for, giving links that I can read to straighten out what the meaning is in the context of the program. For instance "coincident" in this program has to do with causing the end point of a line or center of a circle to snap to a point in a grid. It has nothing to do with the usual meaning of connected circumstance. Fast and intuitive? Not for me, but I'll take progress even if it's not fast.
I'm not posting this to discourage anyone from using simpler or less expensive software for their hobby needs. However, my initial impression is that the documentation and support for a paid CAD program may be a good investment if your time is worth anything.
Walt
