Need Low Cost Autocad Replacement

I am hunting as well as you. They all have a heavy learning curve. When I was learning AutoCad, I purchased a workbook that ran through the whole process with projects along the way. I wish someone would write that.

Jim
 
I am hunting as well as you. They all have a heavy learning curve. When I was learning AutoCad, I purchased a workbook that ran through the whole process with projects along the way. I wish someone would write that.

Jim
I have actually spent $400 on a training package that is very good for inventor. I just find some of the ways it does thing irritating. Plus its only at work. For home I simply cannot afford it. Solidworks is $12k a year or something ridiculous, ive blocked the email from my memory once i came too! So the hunt continues.
 
Well, I will show my age here. All my training was with vellum and a T-square. I know that system well. I have tried some of the simpler drawing programs and get lost quickly there, though I must admit to giving up pretty easily. I can always use a 2H pencil, compass. and eraser and git-er-done.

I have a buddy who I did a project with recently and he was one of the nerds that wrote the original Autocad code when Autodesk was a tiny startup. He is an amazing software writer. He was using Google Sketchup to do the 2d drawings for our project...

Does anybody have a recommendation for somebody like me who just goes to paper and pencil when the going gets tough? Something with simple instructions so easy that even a dinosaur can understand them?
 
Well, I will show my age here. All my training was with vellum and a T-square. I know that system well. I have tried some of the simpler drawing programs and get lost quickly there, though I must admit to giving up pretty easily. I can always use a 2H pencil, compass. and eraser and git-er-done.

I have a buddy who I did a project with recently and he was one of the nerds that wrote the original Autocad code when Autodesk was a tiny startup. He is an amazing software writer. He was using Google Sketchup to do the 2d drawings for our project...

Does anybody have a recommendation for somebody like me who just goes to paper and pencil when the going gets tough? Something with simple instructions so easy that even a dinosaur can understand them?

Bob,

I'm pretty much in the same age group you're in, too. The engineering group I was in, in 1986 got our first CAD system dumped into our lap. To this day, I never did figure out how to do anything in that cad program. Three years later, we finally got management to buy us AutoCAD version 8 or was it 9, I believe it was. I was much easier to understand and use. Still had a tough time making it work. Your thought process is completely twisted up and tossed out the window. What you learned using the T-square and triangles is null and void with cad.

Moving forward today, I'm still using 2D cad in the AutoCAD format, but using the semi-free Draftsight as my software. For the last three years, Solidworks is knocking at my door and probably will be my next software to use. And the Vicious cycle starts over again of relearning how to draw! But this time in 3D.

I know this doesn't answer your question, not really sure I can alone. Maybe some else can tune in too.
Ken
 
Im looking at a 3d modelling program to replace inventor? I use a work computer to play around with to learn but I just dont get how the programs thinks? Nothing is intuitive to me? I get that frustrated with the way it flips things around when you go from 3d to sketch.

I have turbocad and it just cant do what I want in 3d. I find 2d stuff fairly easy on any of them, im probably doing it wrong as I have had no training but I can get what i need out of it. But when it comes to 3d im stumped. Have been told solidworks is more intuitive than inventor but i can not afford that.
Any suggestions.

I'm at the same crossroads as you. I use eMachineShop for 2D and 2.5D CAD and it works well. It also does 3D viewing and will export a 3D drawing. I've exported to Fusion 360 but I'm at a loss on how to use the program to do anything useful. It's me not the program. I just need to sit down at the computer and focus on learning how it works. Wish me luck.

Tom S.
 
Before the holidays I made a little hammer keychain for someone and spent a lot of time drawing it in AutoCAD 2002 Lite. The head is brass and the handle is stainless steel. I just drew it up in Fusion 360. Would have been nice to have drawn it in 3D before making it, definitely helps visualize the dimensions etc.


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That's a nice drawing but does it do dimension like a cad program does? I'm still stuck with paper. Can't seem to get on the cad wagon but would like to. Tried sketch up and hated it. Couldn't get the hang of turbo cad either.

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This is a tad humorous, I'm trying to talk my Better Half into allowing me to put an old 5' oak drafting board in
the front room by the front windows after we get done remodeling. I've got a few ol' Vemco V-Tracks and I'd like
to setup it up as kind of an 'industrial art' interior design thing. Not sure if she's buying it...

I personally started off using AutoTrol back around '79 or '80, what a PITA. Then CADAM with it's light pen.
At that employer it was requested that I be moved to second shift because I was moving a bit too fast for the
Big Old IBM mainframe to keep up, and kept crashing it, annoying the finance & procurement departments.

AutoCAD has been around since '82 and I still have a version of 2.6 floating around, but I cut my teeth and really
delved into it with R9. That's when, IMO it started to get easier. Gone though was the personal, artistic touches that
I puts into a drawing when creating it manually.
It does make it easier and much quicker to create drawings, but it just doesn't have that 'personal' feel that you get
from a manual drawing. Perhaps rather akin to an artist and canvas.
 
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