What Do You Use To Draw/design Projects?

afraid i am old school.
drawing board and paper that's how i learned at school.
drawing board came out british aerospace near where i lived when it shut down, one of my neighbours was in design department and got it for me along with load of draughtsmen's kit which i still have.
oh and fact i'm rubbish with doing other than basics on computer.
 
So far, I do most of my drawing/design work on a white board in my shop. Actually I have three white boards of various sizes, so larger projects go on the highest board - small stuff with 2 or 3 critical dimensions go on the small one. These are also great for making quick note of diameters, measurements, cutting speeds, etc., and rapid prototyping an idea into some semblance of actual structure.

Loaded fusion 360 last winter but haven't had the time ( or discipline) to learn it. Still hoping though ....

Glenn P.
 
Is anyone using a Microsoft surface 3 or surface pro 3 with fusion 360? It's time for me to get a new tablet and if I can replace my tablet & cheap laptop with one devise that would be great.

The surface pro 4 is to big for my tastes, as I want something I can slide into my camera bags.
 
I regret leaving my old drafting table with the mechanical arm behind when I moved, but only had so much room.

:bawling: I just cannot seem to put my ideas into a computer like I could draw them up.


a-series-paper-sizes-1.jpg
 
I have access to Creo (Pro/E), Solidworks, and Inventor/AutoCad at work, and Draftsight at home and at work. They each have their strengths. Since the work project I'm assigned to now is a Creo project, I tend to use Creo for my personal stuff as well. I do find the initial conceptual stage is best handled in 2-D, in AutoCad or Draftsight. Which I use depends on where I'm sitting when the urge strikes.

-Ed
 
I use a program called Vectoworks, that I got through an education discount about 14 years ago. It seems to be basically an architectural program for big buildings, but I found it to fit my needs very well with all of its simple to use pre drawn items like screws, washers, nuts, bolts etc. Click on the little icon and you get a perfectly sized say 4-40 x 3/8 socket head set screw with hollow point or whatever you want, with highly accurate threads and hex dimensions etc. You can then easily rotate it to whatever view you need, top end, side view, bottom view at any angle. Zoom in and out with dimensions of .0001 accuracy (at least) I found it very easy to use and learned all I needed for my simple purposes in 2d. It can do 3d and I ventured into that mode a few times, but always gave up and went back to 3-view mode. Today it costs many thousands of bucks so it clearly wouldn't be my recommendation for most amateur mechanical drawing needs that I have. Since its a considerably older version I have to shut down my computer and restart it under an older operating system in order to still use it which can be a real pain. I've played around with AutoCad and Fusion 360 which looks great, but doesn't seem to work very well with the neurons and dexterity of my old brain. You use what you have and what you know is my motto, especially when it works for you and your a grumpy old guy.

CHuck the grumpy old guy
 
I use an old version of SolisWorks most of the time , I like lt a lot, now I'm learning Fusion 360 because it has CAM in the same program.
Being retired I am fortunate to have the time to spend on learning this excellent software, I recommend it to everyone.
 
I do most of the design work in my head and a few scraps of paper. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and solve some tricky design details.

Anything that is going to be cut on the CNC will get drawn up using TurboCAD 21.

Steve
 
Is anyone using a Microsoft surface 3 or surface pro 3 with fusion 360? It's time for me to get a new tablet and if I can replace my tablet & cheap laptop with one devise that would be great.

The surface pro 4 is to big for my tastes, as I want something I can slide into my camera bags.

I have a surface Pro 2 128. it was originally win 8 but upgraded to win 10. Love it, very fast, easy to use light weight and although I haven't tried fusion 360 I see no reason why it wouldn't run it. It's quite a powerful little machine, my only complaint is only 1 USB port, but you can always use a multi block USB, I have successfully used 4 USB devices that way. I have fusion 360 loaded onto my desktop, but have neither the time nor the discipline to learn it. Most of my designs sit in my head always have, occasionally when it gets complicated I might make a pencil sketch.
 
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