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I am sniffing around with some CAD programs. Mostly I am thinking about drawing up some jigs and tools that I will have made at a machine shop.

I really don't know the first thing about this kind of software, but I have both TurboCAD and Autocad at my disposal.

Given my "0" experience with this software and a gist of what I am trying to do.... do any of you have thoughts on which I should make the investment to learn?

Does one have a substantially harder or easier learning curve to draw out basic jigs?

The only cost elements I will have with either program is some books on the subject.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Brock, I have Turbocad and have been unable to find any books on how to use it. There seem to be plenty if you have Autocad though.

I don't think it would be any harder to learn one than the other. I had a cad course in college, but can't seem to locate any of my textbooks or notes. And, I have CRS disease, so am not making much progress.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Pocketbook- Turbocad. Performance, features and future expandability AutoCad. You can't really compare the two. Turbo cad is a good home or novice cad system. AutoCad is professional engineering cad system. You can pick up Turbocad at best buy for under $100. AutoCad single stand alone copy is $5K

I agree with Dave that you will have to spend just about as much time learning the basic features and commands of either. Autocad has parameter settings that get more complicated than TurboCad but that make it a better engineering tool. TurboCad is a piece of junk from my stand point as a manufacturing engineer but is an adequate program for small shop or novice usersMichaelP38471.707037037

I have both software packages. That is not a problem.

The question is if I begin with Autocad am I way out of my depth knowing nothing about CAD software and how it works.

I liken it to image manipulation.... by far Photoshop is the best, but if you are a complete neophyte then that might be overkill and a bigger learning curve than necessary.

I am certainly never going to design components for the space shuttle... just jigs and basic wood working projects.

I have no preference for one or the other.... I just knew a bunch of you guys had experience with CAD software and thought I would get your take on this before diving in.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

either require simular input. The command name and way you exacute the command may vary a bit. Personnaly I thnk AutoCad input is more intuitive. I have worked on 11 differnt cad systems form 1973, from Catea to Una graphics. I like AutoCad for ease of usage but I may be a bit skewed because of my experience. one other thing to consider may be that AutoCad will be here 20years down the road. TurboCad is likly to be bought up by someone in the furture and dissapear of the map. Which may be no issue unless you are trying to share files. Almost all cad software will import Autocad "DWG or DXF" files. It is very much the industry standard cad package.

DWG file= AutoCad drawing file (vector image data)
DXF file= Data exchange format file (Raster image data)MichaelP38471.7320601852

Cool ... That is good to know. My hope is that I can figure this out well enough that I can just hand my files over to a machinist and they can bang out my jigs.

That is sort of why I was thinking it might be worth the investment to learn Autocad... but based on your comments it seems like the clear way to go is Autocad.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Brock:
Another software package consideration is "Auto Sketch" by AutoDesk, the makers of AutoCad. I think it is around $300.00. It doesn't have all of the layers, 3-D, bells and whistles of AC but I feel it is more user friendly for a novice.

Michael: What's your opinion on AutoSketch?

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tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

Let's not forget Rhino...nice package, nice price!

Brock,

I have used Turbocad since my DOS 4 days. I learned CAD on a mainframe in 1980. I use Turbocad for all my woodworking and have never had a problem. That being said, I might choose Autocad if I was just starting out and money or availability was no object; based only on the support material available for each program. There used to be a program to compete with Turbocad called, Autocad Light. It may still be out there.

All in all, I think Turbocad may have a shorter learning curve for the type of work you describe, though. Intuition regarding the use of a program can be a difficult thing to define. The biggest problem with any CAD program is learning how to layout what you want.

In CAD, it's a matter of learning how to use construction lines etc. In other words, you have this blank sheet of "paper", how do you define a line or curve against that to begin the drawing? How do you define one line to another? Sounds easy until you start. That was my big problem. Once you get used to that, you can learn any of the programs. Case in point, how many straight, parallel lines are there on say, a headstock?

That being said, I just used Turbocad, this week, to design my first headstock and had no problem!

Good Luck, Steve Brown

I've been using Autocad for nearly twenty years so fairly used to it by now. There is a lot of power in the software that I will never use. That's probably true of most other applications also.
Also use ProE solid modeling software at my day job as a design engineer doing large farm equipment. It has the capability of assembling solid models with thousands of components and will generate a 2D drawing of that assembly or individual components.
To answer you question, Brock, I would recommend going with Autocad if you will continue to have access to it. The newer versions have a lot of 3D capability also in case you ever "get the hankerin'"
It's really awesome to design a fixture and see it in 3D before building it.
Nelson

We have a license to Autocad 2005 from a project we did at work. The software is currently uninstalled on a shelf so the access is there.

I appreciate the input.

One thing I want to do is take some of my existing jigs (i.e. headstock etc.) and somehow "scan" them in and turn them into tighter CAD layouts.

Is this something (relatively) easy to do? Or does it need to be modeled from scratch?

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Brock,

If you don't want to start completely from scratch, most CAD programs will allow you to import a "background bitmap" file. you could use a picture or drawing of your part(s) (assuming the picture or drawing is the correct size), and draw over in in the CAD program.

There are alos vector graphic converters, but my experience has been a bit hit and miss with them.

Seems to work fairly well to scan an object, even a headstock if you can get it to lay down flat on the scanner, and then bring it into Autocad.
The polyline feature then allows tracing over the outline with a series of lines and arcs. Some CADCAM software will use the polyline as input for shape cutting on CNC. The machine will follow the direction in which the polyline is created and the polyline can be offset half the diameter of a cutter for machining inside or outside shapes.
Nelson

[QUOTE=MichaelP]
DWG file= AutoCad drawing file (vector image data)
DXF file= Data exchange format file (Raster image data)[/QUOTE]

Not quite right. DWG is AutoCAD's proprietary drawing file format, while DXF is AutoCAD's "drawing exchange format". AutoDesk publishes documentation describing the DXF file structure so that anyone can freely use it. Both formats contain the same data, but the DWG is a compressed binary format, while the DXF is ASCII. You can open a DXF in Windows NotePad and read the contents, if you understand the structure.

CAD drawing files are sort of like a big database about everything in the drawing. DWG and DXF files can contain both raster and vector information. Raster images are things like bitmaps where the color of each pixel of an image is coded into a block of data, while vector data decribe the geometry of entities like lines, arcs, etc.

I use both AutoCAD and TurboCAD daily in my work. I like both for different reasons. Sometimes I find I can do things easier in TurboCAD but I would probably have to demonstrate to explain. The down side of TurboCAD is that they push out new releases too quickly and often follow up with point releases to patch up new versions.TomS38474.2799768519

Tom Your right DXF is binary code but still vector coordinate. my goof.

Turbocad may have come a long way in the past couple of years. I got a copy way back in the mid 90's. I found it to be OK for general layout but at the time the dimensioning was not associative. Poly lines were a pain and forget the other failings I ran into(IMO). But like I said I am bios due to 22 years of AutoCad. In truth my favorite system is MacAuto Unigraphics but it is a mainframe package that requires a main frame and specialized work station MacDonald Douglas developed it for the themselves then released it for sale. It is designed to be used as 3d model that is view dependent edited to generate shop drawings. Great for complex assemblies. It would automatically alert you to geometry interferences.

I'm going to learn TurboCad. I downloaded their free trial software after the previous discussion of CAD on the forum. They sent me an email and let me buy TurboCad Deluxe 11 for $49 (savings of over $100). I'm sure AutoCad is great, I just can't afford it for the kind of projects I'll be doing.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

AutoCad is not a program for the home or hobby user. There is AutoCad light available for a lot less and AutoDesk has aquired GenericCad and is now available for about $300

I'm from the Mac side of the tracks, and use PowerCadd and Form•Z for
2D & 3D respectively, but I did spend a couple of years on AutoCad while
working in an architectural firm.
The learning curve with AutoCad is steep, but once you've got it under
control it's a very powerful program.

Important questions to ask (yourself) is your immediate and future needs
of the cad files.
Are you simply going to draw, print and hand make templates? (go with
the simpler program).
Do you want to output to NC compatible files and if so will they be 2d or
3d machine operations. The file output from your cad program will matter
if you plan to do this.

As for scanning existing templates, in my experinece the time you spend
scanning, converting to backgrounds, tracing, cleaning up, etc will be
greater than drawing from scratch with the template a ruler and
protractor at hand.

As for cost of programs the greatest cost is the time spent to learn it.
Choose the program that will be the best suited to your final goals.
There's nothing worse than outgrowing a program and having to learn a
new one to replace it.

-C

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Freeborn Guitars
and home of BeauGuard©

I think Brock said He had AutoCad 2005 already available. If that is the case learn it. It is a very comprehinsive tool

I do have it. I think that is the way I am going to go.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

[QUOTE=TomS]

I use both AutoCAD and TurboCAD daily in my work. I like both for different reasons. Sometimes I find I can do things easier in TurboCAD but I would probably have to demonstrate to explain. The down side of TurboCAD is that they push out new releases too quickly and often follow up with point releases to patch up new versions.[/QUOTE]

You're probably right about too many updates. On the other hand, I still use V7 and haven't begun to tap the limits with woodworking. If I start doing a lot of 3-D stuff though, I'm sure the situation will change.

Steve Brown

www.deltacad.com ......free trial, cheap full version, very user friendly. Just a FYI for others that may be shopping around.

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DES - Shepherd, MI