[quantummachine]

Hello guys,

I had some experience with commercial CAD/CAM software but want to switch to open source for my DIY project.

My question is: which open source CAD/CAM software do you recommend? These 3 things are important to me:

1. User friendliness - I want to minimize my time in learning how to use it;

2. Functionality - reasonable functions set but as close to any commercial software as possible;

3. Works on Windows 7;

Thanks for your advice.

[Nine86]

Have a quick look at Fusion360 from Autodesk. Not really 'open source' but it remains FREE for commercial use and/or if you make less than $100k income annually.

I am not a F360 user myself but heard they have great support and an active forum. Also heard Ketchup (or SketchUp) was free, again not necessarily 'open source'

Do not know any open source CAD software so I guess above wasn't very helpful to you lolll

Luck finding what you are looking for

[quantummachine]

Thanks pal, it looks cool and I had used Autodesk a while ago, they make good product. I shall download and play with it.

[Nine86]

No worries mate.

If you live up to your alias, then I can't wait to see your time warp ing machine. Let us know when its completed so we can all go back to best years with you (80's)!

(ref to QuantumMech)

Tc!

[quantummachine]

LOL,

Just a side note, yesterday the Science Daily reported that an university research team was able to visualize the wave behavior of a particle under room temperature for the first time in history, I can't wait to see how this negative probabilistic wave looks like.

[Nine86]

Historical indeed, thx for sharing this.

Fascinating, not that I am involved in the research myself but enjoy keeping track of the dev. Didn't know, I'll have a look

There is a chap on our other forum (Particlewave, loll), I'll let him know... sure he'll be exited to hear about that (in fact I'm sure he knows already)

[akitene]

Good evening Nine86, you should take a look at the very promising FreeCAD. It's a fully open source, parametric 3D modeller. Still in development, it already features loads of interesting things, especially the ability to use python scripts to create complex objects. It also has a very active forum.

[quantummachine]

I'm reading contradicting reviews, some say it is a great piece of software, others say it is buggy, lack of feature, still a work in progress, which one is closer to what it is? Can anybody here share your experience and views?

[dharmic]

I'm not a fan of Fusion, kept hitting walls with it where I had a very clear and simple goal but ended up having to do an inordinate amount of workaround to get it to actually work.

FreeCAD is a mixed bag. I started using it when a co-worker at my last job (a former PTC Creo sales consultant and wiz with that software) convinced me to have another crack at parametric design software.

It's buggy as heck, you'll learn to save often for the amount of times it crashes. It has very little (ok, zero) support for assembling multiple parts. The documentation is rubbish when you can find any. And sometimes you need to go hunting for tools in their big nest of views.

but.

I loved it. Despite those shortcomings, it was fast and it allowed me to do everything I needed. And it was free/open source which was pretty superb.

Definitely worth downloading, installing, and spending a few evenings playing with - maybe grab some drawings and create the models for them and see how you get on.

[quantummachine]

Thanks, it really helps. I will download it and play it for some time, from your post it seems to be better than its free but entry level commercial counterpart.

[dharmic]

For free software, it's pretty good. If you're an absolute glutton for punishment you can also bring in OpenSCAD as a plugin to FreeCAD to do lots of programmed stuff.

Still. The guy at work used to laugh at my trials and tribulations with it, and would take great pleasure and glee from taking about ten seconds on Creo 3.0 to replicate what took me an hour to do in FreeCAD.

If there's any way you can lay hands on a license of Creo Parametric, grab it. It's the first piece of design software in the "professional" space (comparing with the Autodesk, Catia etc offerings) that I've seriously considered dropping $5k of personal money on. One decent project will probably push me over the edge.

[quantummachine]

Reading through your last post I've changed my mind, I won't touch it for the time being, not because it is not a good software, but because I really don't have the time on the learning curve. My priority now is to work out the project instead of mastering another CAD/CAM software.

Thanks again for your insightful review.

[victorofga]

im not sure what reason you looking for open source... if you like to develop or at least customizing then sourceforge the place you can find free cadprograms..
like the one mentioned freecad

otherwise, try draftsight.. that one can be said commercial on every way, and free to use..

fusion 360 i think for a year long, then need to pay subscription.. fusion is mainly for modeling and machining..

purely for cad, draftsight will work.. if you were used before autocad, then you simply download and start to using, without any learning curve..
same commandline, and 99 percent same commands, even variables are same..