Drawing software for people who struggle.

[Morrisman]

My main program is SketchUp primarily for furniture design or laying out roofs or flooring/tiles etc.

Would be a pain in the **** if I needed to model for CNC I suspect.

I used Sketchup to design our house in the Philippines, every part, to the last inch. It was great for getting a real world view of what it would look like in 3D, but a bit of a pain to produce any kind of a decent working sort of blueprint with dimensions showing in the right places.

 

[bourbon]

I use CAD. get a bit of Cardboard and a pencil. Rough sketch of what I need. Job done.

 

[Bladevane]

@Richiew - if you would like earlier versions of eMachineShop for DXF export drop me a pm with your email address and I’ll add you to my Dropbox folder with these versions.

 

[Richiew]

@Bladevane. Cheers. But you actually sorted me out a few months ago. Thanks again. It has been very helpful getting me started.

 

[Bladevane]

OK, good. Memory like a sieve.

 

[sako243]

You want a cube with a hole through it? You have to create a 2D sketch of one side of the cube, extrude that 2D sketch to create a 3D cube, sketch the hole you'd like on the face/plane of the cube, then (cut) extrude the 2D hole through the 3D cube. You then create a drawing from that 3D model.

Not true (admittedly not used Fusion 360 as I have a full version of Inventor Pro but it's the same thing).

You can create the 2d square with a circle in the centre and just select the bit you want to extrude, it will automatically leave the hole empty.

 

[Richiew]

That's how I did the slots in my basic model. There are probably loads of different ways of doing it.

 

[MickeyW]

MickeyW. The fusion 360 website states that although you can't export dxf files in the hobby version you can save sketch files as dxfs. I guess I will find out what this means when my trial expires. I won't need dxf functionality for a while yet I reckon anyway.

5 – Can I still laser-cut or do 2D routing?​

Save As DXF is still available from sketch.

• DXF will not be a supported file format from File > Export, but you will still be able to right-click on a sketch in the browser and select Save As DXF for your laser cutting and routing needs.

Well, thank you very much Richie. You have taught me something new today. That will come in very handy indeed.

 

[mtt.tr]

In my previous life as a D&T technician i used Techsoft's 2D design. It is the go to software for cad in schools. It has its limitations but is pretty intuitive.
We used to get most kids in a class drawing something of their own with it within one lesson, some would pick it up within minutes.
Of course what they drew might not be possible to cut on the laser cutter & then Sir (ie me) would have to edit 24 drawings so they would work, some were diabolical!
Although there is a free version it doesnt export dxf files & the paid for version is expensive for what it is.

That's a blast from the past

 

[Mart63]

Todays tutorials completed. Easier than you think.

 

[m_c]

Not true (admittedly not used Fusion 360 as I have a full version of Inventor Pro but it's the same thing).

You can create the 2d square with a circle in the centre and just select the bit you want to extrude, it will automatically leave the hole empty.

You could do it that way, but it then restricts how you can change those features later.
Want to convert the hole to a blind or tapered hole, then you'd have more work to do later in order to achieve that.

It does depend on what you're trying to achieve.
Doing it as a single sketch does work, but if it's the start of a complex part, taking the easy option will often bite you later.

 

[ronan]

If you can sit down with someone who really knows their stuff with any of these drawing packages, who can give you a good grounding in the basics, its the way to go. I did that years ago with a cnc/cad night course i did years ago. We were using solidworks and i was a complete novice. The instructor giving us a sneaky copy of the software on our own laptops really helped.

But at home i never use cad software. A sheet of paper and a 2h pencil and i am happy.

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

If you can sit down with someone who really knows their stuff with any of these drawing packages, who can give you a good grounding in the basics, its the way to go. I did that years ago with a cnc/cad night course i did years ago. We were using solidworks and i was a complete novice. The instructor giving us a sneaky copy of the software on our own laptops really helped.

But at home i never use cad software. A sheet of paper and a 2h pencil and i am happy.

I like my drawing board but it's easier for me to make requested changes with software

 

[MickeyW]

I like my drawing board but it's easier for me to make requested changes with software

You're making me recall the days of scraping ink off drawing film with a scapel blade to modify designs . I don't miss this.

 

[sako243]

You could do it that way, but it then restricts how you can change those features later.
Want to convert the hole to a blind or tapered hole, then you'd have more work to do later in order to achieve that.

It does depend on what you're trying to achieve.
Doing it as a single sketch does work, but if it's the start of a complex part, taking the easy option will often bite you later.

I wasn't denying that just saying that you could do it the way the OP wanted to.

 

[Screwdriver]

This guy knows his stuff andproduces videos which are easy to follow.

I will also cross post this in the YT thread.

 

[Richiew]

Yeah I mentioned him in post 12. It was his videos that made me think I could do it too.

 

[Screwdriver]

Yeah I mentioned him in post 12. It was his videos that made me think I could do it too.

sorry, this isn’t the Fusion thread I thought it was! Not seen this one before. I just found that video and did a search for Fusion in here to share.