free CAD program?

I am looking for a simple free CAD program. I have Sketchup, but it does way more than I want. I want a simple 2D CAD program, no fancy 3D views needed. I had a copy of Windraft years ago that I liked, incase anyone is familiar with it.

Reply to
Greg O
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Google shows 2,060,000 hits for freeware cad software.

technomaNge

Reply to
technomaNge

I use GSIMPLE for a lot of things, and it even has soime CAM capabilities.

Reply to
Bob La Londe

Thanks for the help, I really have trouble figuring out the conplexities of Google. Now can you recommend one or two of the two million hits?? Greg O

Reply to
Greg O

I've been using qcad for a few months now; seems to work really well.

Reply to
Joe Pfeiffer

Doublecad XT is a feeware AtuocadLT clone. If you are at all familiar with LT, you will find this looks and acts almost identically. The freeware version is no really crippled, and does not time out. Check it out here:

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Reply to
Al A.

No idea, closest I ever got to CAD was Envisioneer Express.

Got tired of playing with it and went to other interests.

technomaNge

Reply to
technomaNge

Well ... *I* could -- but you didn't bother to mention what OS you are using (I'm presuming that you are still running some form of Windows (especially since you mention "Windraft"0, as it seems to be only Windows users who assume that *everybody* else also runs Windows. :-)

And the drawing programs which I would recommend are for unix/linux systems, and may not run on Windows at all. They are assuming the GUI will be run under X11, not Windows, and not Mac's GUI either. (But Mac's OS does have a unix under it, and has an optional X11 server loadable which will support the standard unix programs.

Good Luck, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

D?N, you *really* need to do this: Go to ~/.slrnrc and search for "visible_headers". Just inside the closing quote, add this... ,X-Newsreader:,X-Mailer:,User-Agent:

Alternatively, just hit 't' when curious about OS/newsreaders.

You won't have to guess which OS people are using, at least to post, giving you a pretty good idea that they probably use that OS for pretty much everything else too.

I was going to suggest xfig, but knowing the OP was a dozer, decided to keep it to myself. ;-)

Reply to
Steve Ackman

Or -- simply type "|less" to see the whole article no matter what slrn decides to suppress. Lots of ways to find out.

Of *course* I can tell what they used to *post* -- but I don't assume that anyone uses the same computer for everything that they do.

And it really makes sense for someone asking for software suggestions to *say* what OS they are expecting to run it on. Otherwise, the advice is likely to be wrong no matter how well intentioned.

:-)

That was one of my suggestions -- but a quick Google search says that they would have to install Cygwin to be able to run it.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

Yabbut, then the nesting colors disappear. Instead of making the post clearer, "|less makes" it monochromier.

But... but... *I* presumed that anyone who could presume that a poster was a dozer because he failed to mention his OS would also assume a dozer poster is a dozer luzer across all his computers. That's not such a far-reaching presumption... is it? ;-)

One might suppose.

That'd be *one* way of doing it...

Reply to
Steve Ackman

Well, I do have a box running Ubuntu, how's that? Greg O

Reply to
Greg O

You could fire up synaptic and see what's there, though I doubt a search on CAD would find xfig. It's probably there under draw or vector or some such.

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Then there's qcad, which was I think written for Windows originally, but has been ported to 'nix? I have it on my FreeBSD box, but none of the Linux ones. It is in the synaptic listing on Debian though.

If those don't float your boat, there are a bunch more you might google on (none of which I've tried):

alliance (for VLSI design) brlcad (CSG - probably more than you need) cadubi (ascii art) chipmunk An electronic CAD system electric electrical CAD system fandango A python scripted 3D CAD application FreeCAD A general purpose 3D CAD modeller kicad Schematic and PCB editing software leocad virtual LEGO bricks? pythoncad An open-source CAD package built designed around Python varkon A free CAD system and applications development tool xtexcad Simple drawing program enforcing limited slopes and diameters

Reply to
Steve Ackman

[ ... ]

O.K. For that, several options:

1) xfig (search "xfig linux" to find it). It may be already in the list of pre-compiled packages for ubuntu. Yes -- it is: -- see

It is more a drawing program than a CAD program, but it works well, and I have used it for design drawings.

2) jDraft runs in the java interpreter, and might even work on Windows.

The only problem that I've encountered with it was on Sun's Solaris, as it comes in a shell script wrapper which starts with "#!/bin/sh" to execute the shell. But, it uses some features which are present only in /bin/bash (GNU's superset of /bin/sh), and which fail on the Sun Solaris, which has a real /bin/sh, and separately a /bin/bash. Linux simply has /bin/sh as a symlink to /bin/bash so it works fine there. All you need to do in that case (with something with a real /bin/sh like Solaris) is to edit the first line to read "#!/bin/bash" and everything works fine.

3) "oscad" (It started with a different name, which turned out to already be in use, and after a few false starts, finally settled on "oscad". This one has to be compiled -- it comes in source code.

Hmm ... I can't find the proper web page for that one, just some other things which seem to have taken the name. It may have died.

There are others, such as varkon, and brlcad which I have no experience with.

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

I downloaded DoubleCAD and am playing around with it, so far, so good I will keep the other recommendatios too, in case DoubleCAD does not work out. Thanks all! Greg O

Reply to
Greg O

Ya get what you pay for, Greg.

Let us know how it works for you, huh?

Reply to
cavelamb

So far so good. I was welding up a trailer hitch for my Harley this weekend and for the life of me I could not get some angles to work. Fired up the computer and let DoubleCAD do the thinking for me. I also bent up a 3/4 x

1-1/2 rectangular tube that had 8 bends in it. A "U" shaped piece with extra jogs out on the legs. I ran that by the computer too, then cut out the pie pieces and bent it out of one piece of stock. It fit the first time. I still need to lay out a suspension for the one wheel trailer I am going to build, probably tomorrow evening. I like the feature on DoubleCAD where when you draw a line you can just type in the angle and length you want. Beats the hell out of trying to drag the line to the length and angle! Greg O
Reply to
Greg O

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