Anyone recomeend a good but basic CAD program for designing parts and stuff. I dont want to break the bank either.

 

AutoCAD student edition is inexpensive. Good for wireframe applications and sheetmetal design.
ProEngineer student edition. Limited capabilities, but good for basic solid modeling (simple plastic parts, vert mill machine and lathe parts).
Both are rather simple to learn their basic traits/modes.

 

Turbo CAD. There used to be a free version, not sure if it's still around, but even if you buy it, it's less than $100. Very powerfull.

 

You might want to try Maya. Its the most powerful Cad system to date.

Extremely complex though as it can takes months or years to understand fully. If you have experience in 3d modeling than it won't be too hard.

They now have a free edition to learn on.

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/...37&newsLang=en

What parts are you trying to model?

I'm currently working on 928 interior. Here is some stuff I was doing lately.


Some work on seats, pod and dash area. Getting ready to map on leather and bump map it soon.



Have nearly all exterior done. This image don't have all the images mapped on it. Going to use a shot of Randy's engine and map that across the engine bay.

I figured after I'm done I could change front and rear bumper to do 86+ sharks.

 

Tony,
I use Turbo CAD. I think it was $89.00 from www.cadandgraphics.com. I don't know how powerful it is compared to others but it is easy to use. I used it to design my manifold and other parts. The patern makers were able to use only my drawings to build the paterns for the castings. The lasercuting facility used my drawings w/o problems to cut parts. You can save drawings in DXF (drawing exchange format) and open them w/ other applications. I'll post a link to a thread I started on this recently.
HTH,
Andy

 

Here is the thread.
HTH
Andy K

 

Thanks Andy.

Actually i went i bought Turbo Cad 9.1 this afternoon. Boy, i can see myself tinkering with this for a while!

 

I use CATIA V5 R10 at work, it's brilliant.
As far as I know it is not "unobtainable" apart from Dassault Systems ...

 

Pretty cool program!

Its taken A LOT of trial and error just to produce the item below, but like im really going to read the manual on it

 

Hmmmm.....that wouldn't be an Intake plate would it?

 

You'll love the turbocad. I've been using it for about 7 years at work now and I've always been amazed at how intuitive it is, compared to autocad. They've really refined the program, especially the 3d side and it's fully compatible w/Autocad so you can open any DWG drawing also.

And the user forum is very helpful. Try: http://forums.imsisoft.com/forums/index.cfm?CFApp=200&

If that doesn't get you there just go to Turbocad.com and you can reach the forum from their home page.

Good luck with it!

 

Thanks for the link Bart, some good info there.

Yup, Jay, its a copy of the botom surface of the intake plenum. Just messing around and practicing. (not done with it yet) Basically traced the raw dimensions on to foam card stock, then set up a grid system on it to locate all the holes. Then i made the same grid system on the cad program and specifed what size holes went were.

Its rough yet but sure gives me an appreciation on how things are designed and constructed i tell ya!

 

Very impressive Tony! Looks like your designing your own positive displacement intake. It will be a fun exercise. Please keep in mind that I have spent thousands of hours and dollars to provide such intakes to the kind folks here. I hope to be able to sell the intake, pulleys and inlet combo for around $1500.00. I think that will be hard to beat even if DIY considering others ask $600 for their crank pulley alone.


Andy K

 

Hey Andy
The playing around with the CAD program and all the head scratching ive done makes me REALLY appreciate what you have done. Until ANYONE sits down and trys to design parts and implemtent a design from scratch they dont have an appreciation of the time ,work and $$$ involved. Your set up is a great deal. Its been pretty eye opening for me so far.

Keep up the good work.

 

Tony, good start! I have been in product development in about every industry, including automotive, medical, etc. and still consult both in new product development and crisis management and must say, manifold design is one of the most difficult modeling challenges I have ever encountered!

We have a few seats of SolidWorks and one of ProE. What software was used for your part? And you do not appear to have the "lead in" angles yet for the ports...a difficult task indeed..... A customer has a template for a whipple for a two valve....I will check his progress and see if he is willing to release some mounting dims.

Marc
DEVEK