Simple drawing package for 911 trolley

[Flat 6]

Evening,

So I've come up with a design for a trolley to put my '73T on so I can remove and restore the suspension and running gear. Actually it will be two trolleys, one at each end.

I would like to do some basic drawings to give to a fabricator. I could do this with pencil and graph paper but I'd quite like to develop some basic skills with a drawing package.

A 2D package would probably do me but it would be nice to be able to see a 3D model. It's going to be basic square section though so not essential.

I've had a very quick play with Sketchup but didn't find it at all intuitive. My daughter used Autocad for her A level projects and it looked good but I don't think there is a free version. Solidworks also seems to be recommended for engineering drawings and I think there may be a free version.

Just wondered if any of you have played around with this type of package and liked one in particular. I don't mind having to learn some basics but I was hoping to find a tool that allowed me to do simple things like draw rectangles representing different sizes of section, to certain scaled lengths, then combine them to show the trolley in one piece.

Any recommendations?

Al.

[defianty]

Up until you mentioned it I was going to recommend Sketchup. All 3D software has a steep learning curve if you're unfamiliar with 3D design but I think Sketchup is one of the easier to get to grips with. A couple of hours with a few YouTube tutorials and you'll have the skills needed to put together what you're after. Sketchup also has a great free library of items you can download and edit.

[Nige]

Stick with 2D and try Coreldraw. You can download a 30 day trial, or search harder and find hacked version.

[Jonny Hart]

^ Agreed. Sketchup is probably the simplest tool to achieve fast results. Other 3d packages tend to assume knowledge of machining and view the object from the perspective of a how it would be made by a cutting tool. Whether this seems intuitive or not kind of depends how your brain is wired!

[Mick Cliff]

Sketchup Make every time. And it's free!
Shetchup Pro offers more 'bells and whistles' but it costs

[kvinyl]

Draftsight is a free 2D drawing package from Dassault. It offers practically the same user interface as the equivalent AutoCad package and is intuitive once you give it a little time.

https://www.3ds.com/products-services/d ... -software/

Solidworks, Inventor, ProE, etc. are all excellent 3D modeling packages but you will need to invest a huge amount of your time to get anywhere with them so I wouldn’t recommend you start there. As mentioned above, Sketchup works very well but you will have to give it some time also to figure it out and become familiar with the controls

[redrobin911]

HI Al, We use Vectorworks - again I doubt if a free version.

[inaglasshouse]

Sketchup certainly worth persevering with.

Another one I like, which has a free version, is Onshape. I looked into it because the additive manufacturing (3d printing) folks I talked to for a hobby project were not at all keen on the machine instruction output from Sketchup.

[Flat 6]

Thanks all,

Looks like I need to give Sketchup and Onshape some time. I was reading last night that Onshape was developed by many of the people who developed SolidWorks and so is pretty similar.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll publish whatever designs I produce... but they won't be rocket science!

A.

[BILLY BEAN]

Many years ago I used Autocad and then Solid works. As already mentioned the amount of time you need to put into these is only justified if you are using them on a regular basis. Also without regular use to reinforce learning you may forget how to use them efficiently. Or in my case forget altogether how to use them.The few times I have needed to make drawings ( simple brackets, wheeled dolly for a 911 etc) in the last five years I have used pencil and paper. Provided your drawings are to scale, you follow drawing conventions and provide some dimensions and notes a fabricator should be able to use them to make what you want.

[Winston Teague]

This is interesting, I am at a similar point. I want to be able to create engineering drawings and use them to drive a (old) cnc milling machine i have bought. Partly as a way of inspiring my son in engineering. I've Autocad 2006 on an old ebay laptop, it is easyish to use but being old (me) i dont find it intuitive, my son (12) said 'its easy, its just like minecraft'!!!!
He is now using Siemens Solidedge, which is free to students, but we are about to try the free trial of Autodesk's Fusion 360. The tutorials make it look very straight forward, and interesting. Their website also implies that it can be free to hobbyists (as well as students). Keep us posted of progress! W

[Gary71]

My Son uses Autodesk Fusion 360 as he has a licence from his college. I tried to draw a frame on it and it was impenetrable to me.

However I must admit I tried to wing it rather than learn it. Clearly that doesn’t work!

[Bruce M]

Never used it but I also understand Fusion 360 is free for hobbyists. The website makes it less than obvious however.

Thisoldtony has probably done some YouTube tutorials & his videos are very entertaining.

[shambly]

Designspark mechanical is a free cut down version of SpaceClaim that is quite easy to get going with. (I use SpaceClaim myself).

Simon

[Timo]

I use solidworks at work and it is pretty intuitive once you get into it, but as others have mentioned the initial learning curve is steep and requires a big time investment. Sketchup or just sketch it yourself would be my suggestion, or alternatively a lot of cad software companies will give you a free 30 day trial, however if you are attempting to run something like solidworks, inventor etc you will need a high spec cad station to run them properly.