Can anyone recommend some free CAD software that I can use to knock up plans?
I'm familiar with drafting by hand and may just do that if there is nothing in the amateur market for me.
Verv
Free CAD software
Jan 05, 2008
4 Replies
Trouble is, free==not that good.
I will go out on a limb and say see if you can lift a version of Corel Draw, 8 or later, off ebay or a mate.
Turbocad ain't bad, but I prefer Corel.
Both those make a fair fist of 2D drafting, but you have to understand their little ways.
I agree on Corel Draw 8. I have a copy of Delta Cad and use CD 8 exclusively since I got it. You can draw and color almost any 2D image in it. I even used it once to create a 3 disk color wheel to decode (electronic) resistor bands.
Alibre has a free version of their excellent 3-D modelling program. I can't remember if you can automatically take 2-D drawings off of the model with the free version, but you can with the paid for version. Alibre's at
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Alternatively, progeSoftt have a free CAD program based on IntelliCAD which uses industry standard DWG files as it's native file format. They are at
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I haven't tried progeSoft's version of IntelliCAD but did use Atlas's version (no longer available) and found that to work pretty well. ProgeSoft's version is a much later edition of the IntelliCAD libraries so should be pretty reliable.
Hth,
Boo
In message , Vervain Speller writes
2 thoughts. Look at Turbocad. Some of their older versions were available free at one time.Have you looked to see what is in open source software?
After a quick Google on "open source cad software" found this which may help
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