Cad and dxf

[OTHill]

Anyone got advice on Cad? Which ones are good at both mechanical drawing and working with DXF files? Turbocad? Free cad? Inkscape? Draftsight?? Iv'e got Corel draw X6.Not really user friendly for mechanical.

[sawdust1]

@othill
I use QCad Pro. I may not be a good person to comment as it is the only program I have ever used. Friend of mine also uses it and he can make it do some incredible things. I think all cad programs have a steep learning curve. I do like the program.

Dawson is a beautiful part of the country, long time since I was there.

David

[WyoGreen]

I use SolidWorks, they have a free version. You have to renew your registration every year, but other than that it works good. With that said, I rarely use it, as Corel Draw works fine for almost everything I do. I find that by typing in Square sizes and Circle diameters, along with using guide lines, I can make up drawings that are within the tolerances that plasma can cut.

Steve

[acourtjester]

I use Inkscape and TurboCad and looked at Qcad as with any software there is a learning curve. The terminology seems to be the problem as they have different names for operation used to do things. There are large numbers of tutorial type videos on the web that help and the old lets see what this does process, and the un-do edit key helps in learning. As that Inkscape and QCAD are free how much you can spend seems to be the factor on what you get and use. Some of the high end CAD programs may have more fetchers and quicker doing things after you learn them.

[OTHill]

Thanks for the info.I have recently bought another plasma table and when I get it going my son and his boys are going to use my first table in their shop.I was looking for something more user friendly for them but might just have to go the Corel Draw route.

[bhamer62]

Draftsight is basically a free clone of Auto Cad, I have both and tend to use Draftsight much more often, it's less cumbersome and does a much nicer job on text conversions.