What Do You Use To Draw/design Projects?

[Robert LaLonde]

CATIA V5. I had 4 years of training in high school.

I took a mechanical drawing class in high school. We used pencil and paper. Sometimes velum.

 

[MikeWi]

I took a mechanical drawing class in high school. We used pencil and paper. Sometimes velum.

I took a drafting class in Junior High school. The toughest part was scribing clean lines in the stone with your chisel.

 

[STurnerXM2010]

Started with SketchUp and got my feet wet. Once I got pretty good at it I jumped over to SolidWorks 2018. As a side note, if you're a veteran Solidworks is $20. Not some lite version where half of the functionality is backed out. THE FULL SOFTWARE SUITE is $20. Hard to beat. I can't seem to break away from it. LOL

 

[7milesup]

After working with Solidworks for a while now, I will have to say it isn't too bad. It does have some very powerful tools. I did discover a really set of videos by Tim Calinan. He has a heavy Irish accent, but other than that, he is a great teacher.
Tim Calinan Videos

 

[Tool Chatter]

I use Autocad 2016, self taught, so no where near an expert. But I do pretty well in 2D drawing. Once I retire, I probably will not have access to it, and will be looking for another software myself.

 

[doc55]

At work I have used Catia, Solidworks DelCam & NX I prefer NX but that is because I use that the most.

 

[ebolton]

I use Autocad 2016, self taught, so no where near an expert. But I do pretty well in 2D drawing. Once I retire, I probably will not have access to it, and will be looking for another software myself.

Once you retire, you still have a few good options for AutoCAD compatible 2D software. I highly reccomend Dassault Systems Draftsight. Dassault is the people that make Solidworks. Draftsight is very similar to an older rev of AutoCAD. It's 2D and not as customizable as AutoCAD, but it's free and that counts for a lot. You may also be able to stick with AutoCAD if you volunteer in some form of educational role (like assisting a FIRST team at your local high school). Autodesk is really good about providing their software for educational use.

-Ed

 

[Gauge12man]

I used ProgeCad Professional. It's not that cheap, but having used to use AutoCAD as part of my job for a few years, I wanted something close to what I was used to. It works great and there is no learning curve if you're used to AutoCAD. I also use Draftsight at work sometimes because it's free. It's not as powerful as ProgeCad, but it's still pretty able.

 

[Tool Chatter]

ProgeCad sounds like something I'll look into one day. If it's a no or minimum learning curve, that's got my name all over it. It's not that I can't learn a new software, just that I don't want to take the time to do it.

 

[Rick S]

I have used AutoCad for 25+ years for my work , construction and development. It is still my go to for my more complicated projects in the shop.
My one regret is that I no longer have the large digitizer tablet that I used with early versions . It was a much faster interface that the current ribbon.
You could customize the tablet template to suit your particular needs , print out the template on heavy mylar and attach to the tablet.