Best Free CAD software 3

[rickfischer51]

Im a recently retired engineer with an occasional need to draw stuff. Im on a fixed income (actually not fixed, it's broken, as in no income, just out go) so I need to control my costs. Im looking for a free cad package. Any recommendations?

Rick Fischer
Retired Principal Engineer
Argonne National Laboratory

 

[CWB1]

Most every professional software package has free licenses for students and faculty, so you might consider becoming an adjunct for a class/semester. Many like Solidworks also have low-cost licenses for hobbyists and members of certain clubs/organizations (EAA, etc).

 

[mfgenggear]

The issue with most pro software it requires an annual license fee, I worked with Inventor, and Freecad made the same cylindrical shafts in 3d

 

[mfgenggear]

Auto cad light for 2 d drawings works very well, at a small price

 

[rickfischer51]

btrueblood: I'm looking at Alibre. Have you done anything with it yet?

All the rest: Thanks for the input. Interesting to see the range of programs used, didn't seem to be a clear consensus, same as the other threads I read.

Merry Christmas!

Rick Fischer
Retired Principal Engineer
Argonne National Laboratory

 

[Pud]

Hi Rick,

When I retired I bought Alibre to do the "odd jobs" with.
Didn't subscribe to updates etc., but I've designed a few plastic parts on it which paid for it in a few months.
It reminds me of SW. Nice to use.
Never got into swoopy curvy bits though...

Cheers
Harry




Politicians like to panic, they need activity. It is their substitute for achievement.

 

[dik]

I don't know how it is now, but back a decade, I bought Bricscad for less than AutoCAD LT and it was nearly upto full blown AutoCAD for less cost than LT. I don't know if Bricscad can be purchased anymore, or if you have to rent it. Bricscad would open 60Meg AutoCAD 3D drawings that could be edited and saved and opened in AutoCAD.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[btrueblood]

Rick,

Yes, I've done several models which I then sent through to my 3d printer. There are a couple of things that trip me up, mostly on the interface (what buttons to use to move/rotate the model). I'm used to Solidworks and/or Inventor, Alibre is a little clunkier but really it's just the usual learning a new interface until it's muscle memory. The software works fine for making single parts, which is all I've done so far, but it has the capability to do multi-part assemblies and 2d drawings from models also.

As Pud says, I haven't done much with swoopy curvy bits...though I have downloaded some swoopy/curvy .stl files (from thingiverse), decimated the mesh (reduced the resolution) and converted to solid models via FreeCad, and then modified the swoopy curvy models to what I wanted before exporting them as .stl files again to push them through the slicer and 3d print them. Really big meshes slow Alibre down a lot (at least on my 5-yr old laptop) so using FreeCad to reduce the original mesh resolution is a useful, even necessary step.

edit: I should add, I used the free trial version of Alibre before buying - and made sure to wait until I had a couple of projects to make before starting the 30 day trial period.

 

[tygerdawg]

TurboCAD is still out there. Not free, but versions can be had for reasonable cost.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Manufacturing Engineering Consulting

http://www.bluetechnik.com

 

[IFRs]

I use BricsCad, bought a $900 permenant 3D license (currenlty $590 for 2D and $1150 for 3D) and while I subscribe to the annual maintenance, I might stop that when I stop working (soon ???) I came from decades of AutoCad but gave up when they stopped selling permenant licenses.

I suggest you choose carefully and maybe use a non-free version since you may be using it for a long time and getting profficient and productive is an investment in your time. At some point you may customize it with LISP, VB, macros, etc and become screaming fast so you can design as you draw. Then you can bill for what your design is worth rather than by the hours it takes. And you can generate fabrication and erection drawings quickly since you draw to scale taking advantage of all CAD offers.

 

[itsmoked]

I wonder why nobody suggested Fusion 360.

The reason is because anybody who gets tangled up with the idiot lying thieves that call themselves Autodesk quickly learns they should stay away from them. (They should change their name to Autodicks.)

Good luck with their "Free", which after you dump a sh!tton of learning time into Fusion360 they then summarily decide YOU don't rate free anymore and blast you with an annual subscription. Then those who somehow arbitrarily manage to remain free soon have many of the features you helped them fix and make functional removed from the free version.

I use BricsCad Pro perpetual license.

rickfischer51; Consider "BricsCAD® Shape. A FREE 3D solid modeling tool that lets you create your architectural concept models easily and accurately."

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[Sparweb]

Uh, gee, Keith, can you clarify how you really feel?

So I'm in the same boat, but with different software. Fed up with it, too.

Helepolis,
Apparently you missed the hot fury of long-time Fusion users over the licensing change. My more measured response to your question is, do you actually pay for your Fusion 360 license? What do you use it for? I'm not asking to call you out or expect defense, just rhetorically making the point that users become invested in the tools they use the more they use them. I suspect you have a very limited need (unlike others) or have the bill paid for you (unlike others). Users who committed more effort to that software are very bitter.

The frustrating answer is that everybody who uses software regularly for fun and for work should have bought perpetual licenses to everything as it was 10 years ago, then ignored the subscription offers. One by one they all started to offer them, then eliminated the perpetual options, then cranked the fees up.

 

[Sparweb]

Oh; and another vote for BricsCad, for as long as they can resist the temptation of subscription fee sales.

 

[IFRs]

I think BricsCad does it both ways - permanent license and subscription, I could be wrong... It is not perfect but it is close enough that I'm so far happily sticking with it. Almost all of my Autocad macros, LISP, Diesel, extensions and apps migrated either without issues or with minor ones. My customers did not notice that I went from AutoCad to BricsCad.

 

[mfgenggear]

I still have and use autocad 95 and still what I need, i also use the latest auto cad,

 

[MintJulep]

The BricsCAD "Perpetual" license lets you use the version that is current when you buy the license until it stops working.

No updates, bug fixes, new features, security updates, etc.

I'm not saying this is good or bad, just understand it if you go for that option.

 

[CWB1]

Good luck with their "Free", which after you dump a sh!tton of learning time into Fusion360 they then summarily decide YOU don't rate free anymore and blast you with an annual subscription.

To be fair, Fusion wasn't designed to be an actual CAD modeler. Autodesk originally released it as a temporary platform to publicly test features for their other software, and they planned to discontinue it entirely after three(?) years. Unfortunately millions of hobbyists changed the business-case and support costs, as did the liability for professionals surreptitiously trying to save a buck by giving up their customers' IP so obviously price needed to change as well. Given its limited use for business and that it might disappear tomorrow, most engineers I know never bothered much with it.