Inexpensive CAD Software

How about $0? Solid Edge offers a good 2D package here

http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/velocity/solidedge/free2d/index.shtml

Their 3D package is quite a bit more (I suspect $5k+). I don't believe there is any software available where you can just add modules, but here's a link to Cadalyst magazine which will have lots of reviews and advice
http://www.cadalyst.com/

Don't miss this article in Cadalyst.

........... and of course - if you want really low budget:

http://www.freebyte.com/cad/cad.htm

http://freeware.intrastar.net/cadsoftware.htm

(but you may be safer/better off with the above suggested Siemens Solid Edge)

I think free solution for CAD software will be DWG Viewer, You can download it easily from internet. Many CAd engineer's will suggest this you can also check reviews and feedback for it by professionals. See the discussion thread by professionals on mcadforum. I think it iwll be helpful for you. But if you have some budget then I must suggest you Grabcad only..

And, of course, I forgot about Inventor LT. If you want a cheap 3D package, Autodesk is offering Inventor LT free till May 1, 2009.
http://labs.autodesk.com/technologies/inventor_lt/

The man asked for a CAD-system, not some low end wannabe with more memory leaks than features...

QCAD, Archimedes, a bit of googling around will give a lot of possiilities.

If you need free 3D, try Alibre.

I used Alibre at home before my work gave me a free liscence to Solidworks 08. Alibre is very simple to use imo. They have different packages, which are all relatively cheap. For the price, Alibre is the way to go.

QCAD is very good 2D program.

L.J.

Can you help me out which one to choose? When you google you get so many don't know the one to download for mechanical design purpose.

I have ACAD 2007 and wanted to try something different. I was told that Solidworks is good to go with but rather would take advise from someone, like yourself, then from a salesman because he wanted over £7,000.00 for his software.

I wouldn't mind to try something for free myself and see what it's like.

"Can you help me out which one to choose?"

Since I made the endorsement of Alibre Express, others have offered the same opinion.

Given that it is free, you are not anything at risk except your time and even that is still a good investment as you are learning how to express yourself in a three dimensional environment. When you decide to go to something more powerful and more expensive, like Solidworks, you won't be as dependent on the salesman.

AutoDesk products have taken a terrible beating in the marketplace. The 2D AutoCAD drafting packages are no longer viewed as modern tools for expressing designs. The demand that the 3D packages have the look and feel of the old software, really hurt software developers at AutoDesk. Not only did they not have a clean sheet of paper to work with, they were faced with hundreds of thousands of lines of undocumented source code.

By the time they woke up, SolidWorks and ProE had run away with the biggest slice of the market. AutoDesk has been playing catch-up ever since.

Solidedge tried bravely to compete and failed. Recently they were bought out by Siemens. Not sure what the future holds for them but since it too costs over $4000 it won;t influence your choices. A basic seat of Solidworks (one license) also costs $4000. That people chose Solidworks over Solidedge is clearly a function of it's better performance, not any price advantage.

I urge you to go with Alibre Express

L. J.

ProE is a lot cheaper these days and still is benchmark in its niche. Try a personal edition of ProE Wildfire, it costs 250$: http://www.journeyed.com/itemDetail.asp?ItmNo=86414903N

If you have no budget available, try Alibre Express.

SolidWorks comes close to ProE, but is not fully parametric in many cases, which is a real pain if you are in tooldesign for moulding.

Unigraphics is best, but you pay a lot for this.

CATIA is expensive as well and is used in aeronautics primarily.

Inventor is no CAD, it's a toy with alot of eye candy, a lot of problems, memory leaks and lacks a lot of basic functionalities. You could get around those of course using some tricks, but CAD is a communication tool. Other people must be able to manipulate your designs, so Inventor is out of scope.

I personally agree with your dislike on Inventor, but it is available and a lot of people like it. I'm a SolidWorks guy myself, though I'd hate like heck to try to make tooling with it; I do mostly machined parts and small-to-medium assemblies.

Most people (not all) who like Inventor have never seen anything else. Most evolved directly from that other CAD-misconception, AutoCAD, to another bigger disaster: Inventor.

If price is no issue, I strongly recommend CoCreate Designer Drafting, AKA ME10, for 2D drafting. For 3D CAE there are only two options when considering mechanical design: Unigraphics and Pro/ENGINEER. All other stuff is a big waste of money.

(Except for CATIA, that one is used in a big, small niche: Aeronautics. It doesn't survive in other mechanical industries though, it isn't fully parametric.)

As for SolidWorks, I had the opportunity to test it, mainly for tooling purposes. It came very close to ProE, but the SW-developers optioned not to maintain the direct association between part and inserts. They mentioned this had big advantages when doing modifications on mold assemblies and derived moldparts.

My response to their opinion was that thus they force me to start from scratch for every new mold, even when the product is member of a family table.

When using ProE, you can easily replace products (when products are from the same family table) and regenerate and adapt your tooling in a nick of time, exactly due to the full-parametric architecture of the software. That way I had new molds designed in 2 hours instead of 2 weeks, and I'm not talking breadboxes here, but high-tech connectors for the communications industry.

This response got them baffled and SW was considered inappropriate for mold design in our firm.

There is no other CAD-tool I worked with that has this capability, except for Unigraphics, probably. And I did a lot of CAE-tools the last 15 years.

ProE is a big pain and investment in time and money to get fluent with it. Both once you get there, it's a goldmine.

The question was very clear: "I am looking for an inexpensive CAD software program to enable me to do simple drawings, open standard drawing files (with the ability to print them and possibly change some things). I have a budget of $499."

Talking about Aerospace programs like Catia is inappropriate in the context of what is being asked here by someone with a modest budget and no prior CAD skills. Ditto Unigraphics which no longer appears as competitive.

The same goes for Pro E.

PTC shot themselves in the foot with their arrogance, outrageous pricing and inhuman interface that was needlessly complex and convoluted. I am in a position to say this as I worked as an Applications Engineer for PTC prior to the advent of Solidworks in 1995.

The Goliath's unchallenged supremacy came to an abrupt end when the "David", Solidworks, showed up.

PRO E used to cost $60, 000 for one seat of software, a Silicone Graphics Workstation with UNIX and training for a handful of engineers. That fee disappeared almost overnight. They had no choice but to rewrite the software from Unix to Microsoft Windows and redo the interface to something intuitive. They never came back as strong as they once were.

That is all moot.

What this individual asked for was a modestly priced package. None of the one's you brought up comes even close.

The only 3D package that offers the utility, ease of use and low cost (zero!) is Alibre Express. It may not yet offer the sophistication (like Solidworks) needed to get into professional engineering circles but it's getting better every day and should prove more than adequate for what is required by the user

L.J.

Don't get me wrong, I do agree with your points and Alibre is indeed the best solution to the originating question.

I was talking ProE, not PTC (the proprietor of this software). Don't expect them to give straightforward answers. If you need support on any level, do NOT go to PTC but to the 3rd party vendors (most of them also give training and support).

As for interfacing, I worked with ProE starting from version 19 upto now. You're absolutely right on complexity of interfacing, but that's also what I meant as ProE being a big pain. I had my share of frustrations with the software, especially with 2000i.

On the other hand, using those complex interfacing (f.i. in variable section sweep), make it the only software that was able to create some of the most complex geometries I did in gear design, and I'm not only refering to flank geometry. Can SW interpret mathematical functions in cartesian, polar or spherical coordinate systems and use those straightaway in the design? I know most (the Inventor-class) do not.

So yes, it's complex, and yes, it's more power than could needed by many people. But if you're doing complex mathematical geometries in very large assemblies in a fully parametric environment (as you do want to reuse the design in later derived projects, why reinvent the same thing twice, eh?)... not many options are available.

Any idea as to what the difference is between ProE Wildfire and regular ProE (if it is different) in features? How does it compare to Alibre Express?

I guess what I am looking for is, if it is worth the $250 or if it is a partial version with most of the useful features disabled.

Software companies like to issue "teaser" programs just to introduce you to their systems and then hammer you when you want the rest of the features that make it useful.

I am learing a lot about the basics for CAD systems from everyone here. A lot of great input. Thank you all very much.

Siemens 2D or Alibre design

I would look at Turbo CAD go to there WEB site you can down load a trial version.

www.turbocad.com

They have a deluxe version under $200.00 it will do what you have asked. It will open and write to many different formats.

One thing though is you need to look at requirement of the software. Many require additional RAM and Graphic Cards to run properly.

Hi JimR,

Take a look at FASTCAD by Evolution Computing In. www.fastcad.com

I have used it for years and find it very good. It is very intuitive once you get use to it. And its fast and compact and powerfull. I am currently using an old version but I suspect the latest will follow their tradition of being a good solid product.

I think it might fit in your budget $ 595.00

Take a look

Pacesetter

Hi Guys,

Don't laugh, but has anyone tried google sketch?

I downloaded (for free) and was amazed - there is even a full set of tutorials on utube. Have not had time to play with yet and would appreciate comment on anyone who has tried it

My son also introduced me to google documents which I now use as a scheduling and routing spreadsheet to share information with my customers (I am in the cutting tool manufacturing and regrinding service business). Works a treat and once again, cost nothing to download.

I'm not laughing nor would use it beyond rearranging the furniture

I'm not a professional CAD guy like most of the people commenting here, but, I'd just like to add my vote for TurboCad (although I've never really understood how to use the 3D features). The only 3D package (apart from sketchup) which seems very intuitive is Rhinoceros:-

http://www.rhino3d.com/

You can download the trial version and don't have to pay unless you want to save more than 50 times I think (I just create drawings do a screen capture then exit without saving). The full version is $995, but they have lots of options like student/teacher licences for a lot less.

I'm going to follow Laughing Jaguar's advice and try alibre express.

You might want to give TurboCAD Lite also- another free 2D package. Contrary to what many seem to think, there is still a need for 2D CAD in this world. All of the shops I deal with want a conventional 2D drawing for fabrication work. It is far easier to include specifications, like tolerances, finishes, etc. on a 2D drawing. 3D is wonderful, but it is not necessarily the preferred approach for every application...

I haven't seen TurboCAD Lite but have seen TurboCAD LE (Learning Edition). Sometimes it's difficult to find, but, is here at the moment. Search for: TurboCAD LE.