GB GONE Posted September 17, 2004 Report Share Posted September 17, 2004 Any recommendations on a good CAD program to design baits?? Do they need to be a certain type so that the mold can be cnc'd?? Any advice appreciated as some CAD software is $$$$$$!!! Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dvowell Posted September 17, 2004 Report Share Posted September 17, 2004 Wow, this is my first post since registering! A few years ago, while working my way through college, I was the PR officer and a CAD tech for a local construction firm. I had the opportunity to fiddle with many different programs and most all of them came up short of the king of all CAD programs, AutoCad. I know it's major bucks, but you might be able to find an older version used for not a ton of money...on Ebay, AutoCad R12 is going for just over $100-$150, depending on what packages it comes with. Depending on how much you want to spend, there's R11, R12, R13, R14 and 2000, 2002... I would think R12 would be about as old as you'd want to go. If you are only going to be doing 2D drawings, you can get by with AutoCad LT, which is MUCH cheaper. I wouldn't play around too much with some of other software out there as most places you might submit a file to are most likley standardized on AutoCad. Hope this helps just a bit. -Danny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mojo Posted September 17, 2004 Report Share Posted September 17, 2004 This is a good question for BigZ. I asked him this just the other day. Hey Z! Where you at? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigZ Posted September 18, 2004 Report Share Posted September 18, 2004 Any CAD program that will export DXF files will work. As far as the cheap ones go, most of them are junk. If you want a good entry level cad program with power to spare, get Turbocad v.10, DON'T get anything older than that. The reason being that turbocad 10 supports NURBS modeling, which is basically like digital silly putty. Autosketch is also good and right around 100 dollars, but it is pretty neutered compared to the full version or even the lite version. Autocad LT is about 400+ still. You can get away with an older autocad, but make sure it's r.13 or higher. I have run into some problems transferring files over to CNC, mostly with the lousy cad programs. DO NOT GET DESIGNCAD! IT SUCKSUCKSUCKS!!!!!!! Turbocad 10 is the best bang for the buck, and if you spend the extra 100 bucks and upgrade to the pro version it does everything else the big boys can. Be preparded for a learning curve. If you are doing 3d design you need a minimum of 512mb ram, 64mb vid card and at least a 2ghz processor...unless you like waiting for the computer to do its work. You can also get higher end solids modeling programs like Solidworks,ProE and rhino, but they really are overkill for bait design. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.J. Posted September 19, 2004 Report Share Posted September 19, 2004 I'm kind of lost as to how this auto cad stuff works. If you designed a bait, do you just save it to a disk to give to a machine shop with a CNC machine. This stuff sounds very interesting. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delw Posted September 22, 2004 Report Share Posted September 22, 2004 Yeah to what big z says. However here are some problems people who draw baits on cad systems draw them and leave lines and junk in the drawing so when A machine shop runs one he could get a crash. most machine shops will not run other peoples DXF files with out redrawing it. And almost all will not run other peoples g-code programs. your best just to draw it up and send it to a shop in a dwg, dxf, they will in turn redraw it using your dim's. Delw Delw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigZ Posted September 22, 2004 Report Share Posted September 22, 2004 I am not aware of which cam software or machines you are running Del, yet as you well know, a lot of "CAD operators" will not adhere to the conventional constraints of a CNC machines capabilities and cause too many entities in a drawing, overlapping tool paths, undercuts (busted cutter every time!), etc. I have a machining background myself, and I still hose a few drawings here and there. The biggest problem with CNC is the fact that humans interfere with the process! Machines don't make THAT many mistakes! An issue that I have run across is parts that were designed correctly and then cut out of spec due to machinist error in the production phase. Most machining errors that I have seen were failures to compensate for tool length offsets or usage of out of spec cutter diameters. When I make a drawing for someone, I think communication is almost the most important part of the production process. If a guy has to decipher a bunch of alien data in order to make a part from a drawing, that is grievous for everyone and can result in drastic problems and monetary loss. Sometimes everything translates seamlessly; that is when every party involved is satisfied. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delw Posted September 22, 2004 Report Share Posted September 22, 2004 I used a bad choice of wording when I wrote that. what you said is what I was trying to.(tool paths) I use smart cam and mastercam surfcam(which I dont like) and a a few others. been playing around with bobcad here and there also. all cadcam systems have a little better feature than others and they all dont have the same thing, why I have no idea. Ive been playing with them for about 20 years now. making a dxf file is fine as long as its not for tool paths Delw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
