Choosing the Right CAD Software for Mechatronics Projects

[Jane Will]

Hi everyone,


I’m a new member here, currently a mechatronics engineering student, and I’m looking for advice on selecting the best CAD software for designing mechanical and electronic systems. Are there any recommendations for CAD tools that balance ease of use, functionality, and compatibility with simulation software? Appreciate any tips!


Looking forward to learning from the community!

 

[rb1957]

Apologies Jane but there is no "best" of anything.

It makes more sense IMHO to ask ...
1) what is the cheapest ? (something you can do with a bit of research)
2) what is the easiest to learn ? (also something you can do with a bit of research)
3) what functionality do you Need and Want ? since you're in mechatronics I'd think you want to model mechanisms (rather than static structures) ? Do you Need a kinematics solver ?
4) what sort of support is readily available ? are there lots of YT videos (to augment the manuals) ? are there manuals ?? are there worked exmaples ??

So there are a bunch of questions you do ask, and then come back here and say "I've done some research and it looks like XYZ suits me best" and we'll probably say "great !", some might say "ABC is better at ..." and the ideal answer is "yes, I understood that" or "oh, that's news ... but ABC costs a lot more than XYZ"

 

[TMcRally]

I work in mechanical design.

I use Autodesk inventor for design and Fusion 360 for G Code. Both are very good. Both are subscription based which I hate, this is why I have kept my 2018 version of Inventor even though it has many glitches but I have a perpetual licence for it. My Fusion is subscription based. If you don't use it regularly you can buy tokens and use it for X amount of days per year which is a great option if your not using often.

You could just use Fusion 360 for design too but it is limited from what I can see of the design side.

Lots of people now use Solid Works, I expect it is comparable to Inventor but I haven't used it.

Inventor and Solid Works seem to be the generally accepted one in the market. I think inventor probably has a little more credibility with my customers.

Feel free to ask questions.

 

[3DDave]

If there was a best, that would be the only software on the market as every bit of software can be a pain to use, is missing what some think should be functions they claim all other software has, and so forth. Where the balance is is where the user is, where the user wants to go, and what effort the user is willing to put in to become the best for their needs.

Often software that is "easier" is "easier" because it is limited or it allows users off the hook to make decisions that will later come back to be a huge problem. If all you do is one-off design and nothing ever comes back, maybe that's OK. That same software in a shared development environment is where you might inherit a house of cards that collapses because no sense was enforced in creating the model structure.

Asking for one that handles electronics and mechanisms is a big one. It is difficult to become proficient and efficient in either one so they are usually separated with some bit of interchange; like being able to take a PCB file and a component list and creating a one-way link to create a mechanical model for packaging. Integration has been a sales promise unkept for so long I may have come to ignore an actual 2-way integrated case. When it comes to cable design and routing, it's even more specialized and good solutions are expensive.

Be flexible, read the software documentation, look at examples. Also, realize that some software is positioned to be inexpensive by a company that also sells expensive software - they are never going to upgrade the cheap stuff to do what their expensive software can do; you can get stuck on the bottom rung of their ladder.

The only good news, from someone involved in CAD for over 40 years, is that none of them are truly awful, but they can be different and won't have 100% matches for doing every function. When someone claims that software X can do something that software Y cannot do, they usually mean that there is a special purpose button in software X that does what takes a couple of steps in Y.

 

[GregLocock]

For electronically controlled mechanism design (robots) ADAMS/View+Simulink is robust, and https://www.coppeliarobotics.com is one hell of a lot more fun.

 

[3DDave]

For electronically controlled mechanism design (robots) ADAMS/View+Simulink is robust, and https://www.coppeliarobotics.com is one hell of a lot more fun.

Ohh, Mr. Money Bags.

Just kidding; those are terrific tools to have, but "Call for pricing" is not a sign they are embarrassed by the low cost.

 

[GregLocock]

Copellia had (have?) a free demo version which was great fun. But yeah, ADAMS is only viable if you get a freebie license (like universities do)or work for someone with big pockets (like universities do).

 

[3DDave]

I shouldn't cry too much about price. The first systems I worked with would, comparatively, retail today for $50k a seat, shared 300Mb hard drives among a half dozen people, and had no ability to do much more than capture 3D wireframe and simple surfaces. That gradually dropped to only $10k, $5k for the software and another $5k for the hardware.

Still there remains a fairly solid floor that seems too high because the cost to support the software remains high.

Also, a raised middle finger to a bigger maker for no longer having the home version of their software and I think they dropped the academic license as well. That's not how one builds market share but maybe they are too busy selling PDM software to bother with what made them well known.

 

[Jane Will]

I work in mechanical design.

I use Autodesk inventor for design and Fusion 360 for G Code. Both are very good. Both are subscription based which I hate, this is why I have kept my 2018 version of Inventor even though it has many glitches but I have a perpetual licence for it. My Fusion is subscription based. If you don't use it regularly you can buy tokens and use it for X amount of days per year which is a great option if your not using often.

You could just use Fusion 360 for design too but it is limited from what I can see of the design side.

Lots of people now use Solid Works, I expect it is comparable to Inventor but I haven't used it.

Inventor and Solid Works seem to be the generally accepted one in the market. I think inventor probably has a little more credibility with my customers.

Feel free to ask questions.

Which CAD software offers better parametric modeling capabilities for complex mechanical assemblies—Inventor or SolidWorks?

 

[TMcRally]

I would think they are both very good, its pretty much at the core of the software. The more complex assemblies test out your computer particularly the video card but there are strategies to minimise this.

I haven't used Solidworks but the people who do seem happy with it. I can vouch for Inventor though, I have never had an issue creating the right degrees of freedoms, sometimes it can take some creativity. It can get a bit clunky when you add too many contact sets, and drive it manually with the mouse, it seems better if you let the computer drive the constraint but that may well be computer power.

 

[TMcRally]

I shouldn't cry too much about price. The first systems I worked with would, comparatively, retail today for $50k a seat, shared 300Mb hard drives among a half dozen people, and had no ability to do much more than capture 3D wireframe and simple surfaces. That gradually dropped to only $10k, $5k for the software and another $5k for the hardware.

Still there remains a fairly solid floor that seems too high because the cost to support the software remains high.

Also, a raised middle finger to a bigger maker for no longer having the home version of their software and I think they dropped the academic license as well. That's not how one builds market share but maybe they are too busy selling PDM software to bother with what made them well known.

I started design on computers before 3D CAD with Turbo CAD 2D on a 286 computer. It came on 3 floppy discs. I would save up any deleted components for lunch time, select them then go for lunch, it was still working on the edits until well after lunch. Big excitement when the 386 came out with a maths co-processor, it could do it over lunch.

 

[3DDave]

I started design on computers before 3D CAD with Turbo CAD 2D on a 286 computer. It came on 3 floppy discs. I would save up any deleted components for lunch time, select them then go for lunch, it was still working on the edits until well after lunch. Big excitement when the 386 came out with a maths co-processor, it could do it over lunch.

Newbie.

 

[rb1957]

oowww ... the math co-processor ! next you'll remember using punch cards ...

 

[IRstuff]

There is no "best" only good enough.

oowww ... the math co-processor ! next you'll remember using punch cards ...

I remember punch cards, but I don't think I made more than half a dozen or so, since someone helpfully showed me how to use Remote Job Entry (RJE) from the VAX-10 to the IBM 370 and I could use TECO (!) on the VAX to write my code. So SWEET! Never had to reassemble a dropped deck of cards, for example.

 

[lucky-guesser]

I would think they are both very good, its pretty much at the core of the software. The more complex assemblies test out your computer particularly the video card but there are strategies to minimise this.

I haven't used Solidworks but the people who do seem happy with it. I can vouch for Inventor though, I have never had an issue creating the right degrees of freedoms, sometimes it can take some creativity. It can get a bit clunky when you add too many contact sets, and drive it manually with the mouse, it seems better if you let the computer drive the constraint but that may well be computer power.

I started with SW, but that said I am self taught in both and have used them both extensively.

My opinion is that both are good, neither is perfect, but SW is just a little better in every way. SW does a better job with the part textures and backgrounds, so as you start to get complicated assys I find it a little easier/more pleasing to figure out what you are look at.

When it comes to making sketches, creating mates, or other basic tasks, again IV is perfectly adequate but if I'm working on something for hours at a time, I think SW is just a little faster, taking fewer keystrokes to complete certain tasks.

Last, as you start to get complicated with making odd geometries or adding multiple mates (particularly mates that still allow motion within pre-defined limits) I think SW is more likely to be able to figure out what you are trying to do and it will help you do it. I've had IV tell me that it couldn't create a mate because it would conflict with other mates......there were no other mates. I had just imported the part. And say you make a mistake and they are both having an issue, the error message that SW gives you will often times give you a clue as to what went wrong and what you need to do to fix it. If IV can't figure it out, it just sits there like

 

[TMcRally]

I shouldn't cry too much about price. The first systems I worked with would, comparatively, retail today for $50k a seat, shared 300Mb hard drives among a half dozen people, and had no ability to do much more than capture 3D wireframe and simple surfaces. That gradually dropped to only $10k, $5k for the software and another $5k for the hardware.

Still there remains a fairly solid floor that seems too high because the cost to support the software remains high.

Also, a raised middle finger to a bigger maker for no longer having the home version of their software and I think they dropped the academic license as well. That's not how one builds market share but maybe they are too busy selling PDM software to bother with what made them well known.

I started design on computers before 3D CAD with Turbo CAD 2D on a 286 computer. It came on 3 floppy discs. I would save up any deleted components for lunch time, select them then go for lunch, it was still working on the edits until well after lunch. Big excitement when the 386 came out with a maths co-processor, it could do it over lunch

I started with SW, but that said I am self taught in both and have used them both extensively.

My opinion is that both are good, neither is perfect, but SW is just a little better in every way. SW does a better job with the part textures and backgrounds, so as you start to get complicated assys I find it a little easier/more pleasing to figure out what you are look at.

When it comes to making sketches, creating mates, or other basic tasks, again IV is perfectly adequate but if I'm working on something for hours at a time, I think SW is just a little faster, taking fewer keystrokes to complete certain tasks.

Last, as you start to get complicated with making odd geometries or adding multiple mates (particularly mates that still allow motion within pre-defined limits) I think SW is more likely to be able to figure out what you are trying to do and it will help you do it. I've had IV tell me that it couldn't create a mate because it would conflict with other mates......there were no other mates. I had just imported the part. And say you make a mistake and they are both having an issue, the error message that SW gives you will often times give you a clue as to what went wrong and what you need to do to fix it. If IV can't figure it out, it just sits there like View attachment 5160

It sounds good, but it would take me too long to get up to speed, I'm flat out finding my way to work these days and I've been with inventor since the beta version. That's why they look after me so well