Looking for a free 2-D CAD program

[YYCHM]

Something that isn't going to take months to figure out. What are you guys using?

 

[Tom O]

I use fusion, Lars Christensen on youtube gives a great take on how to use it with over 100, 20 Minute videos from configuring to more advanced parts he will even answer your queries.

 

[Johnwa]

I use inventor which is the big brother of fusion. Both are 3D drawing packages. With inventor you create the 3D part by making a number of 2d sketches. Once the part is complete inventor lets you create a 2d drawing fairly easily. I assume fusion is similar.
There may be ways to directly create a 2d drawing but I’ve never tried it.
There are some good youtube vids by “autodesk education”
Fusion has a free startup license (revenue of less than $100,000 per year). Inventor is free for university students and staff.

 

[YYCHM]

Fusion looks to be way more than I need/want at this point in time.

Spent 3 hours playing with LibreCAD and couldn't figure out how to get it to dimension a rectangle.

Maybe I should just stick to an engineering pad and pencil LOL

 

[PeterT]

With inventor you create the 3D part by making a number of 2d sketches. Once the part is complete inventor lets you create a 2d drawing fairly easily. I assume fusion is similar. There may be ways to directly create a 2d drawing but I’ve never tried it.

I'm not a Fusion user but agree with you. I suspect it is similar workflow to other 3D modelers. People new to CAD get hung up on this and think - I don't need or want a 3D package, just 2D. But what they probably don't realize is that every 3D part starts out life from 2D using pretty much exact same tools. And making it 3D is actually the easiest aspect. So if you are going to learn 2D anything, I recommend applying that effort to learning a 3D package even if you don't fully exploit all the other 3D tools at your disposal. Here is a simple visual 3D example, maybe it will help. The 3D lingo varies a bit by software, but generally it goes like this:
1. Make a 'sketch'. This is a 2D construction outline drawn in a single plane with necessary dimensions.
2. Extrude the sketch some defined thickness. Boom, done. It has now become a 3D part or 'solid'.
3. Make a drawing of the part. Think of this as the paper output. You can pick any kind of view orientation; top view, side view, isometric, sectioned... Dimension as little or as much or however you want.

In 2D CAD, regardless of which software, you are already doing steps 1 & 3 and this represents probably 95% of the work. Because step 2 is trivial, it literally is a button click after defining thickness. In the real world, every part or solid has volume. Nothing in the real world has zero thickness. So even if you're designing something thin like .032" sheet metal, that metal has a thickness. Once you tell it that, it opens up a whole new world of 3D power. Now that part can be a member of an assembly of other parts. Now you may choose not to 'draw' the .032" side because it is not particularly revealing compared to the main view outline & that's perfectly fine. But this is the exception rather than the rule.

Most anything you can lay your hands on has 'features' on its other sides. In 2D drafting, YOU are responsible for essentially re-drawing all the features on every different view. If you forgot to manually draw a dashed line, well that's a problem because the other view shows a hole. But in 3D, the software itself takes care of this for you. It knows there is a hole there & supplies the dashed line on the drawing. This is just a simple example, I hope I shed some light.

pic-1 sketch
pic-2 extrusion
pic-3 part
pic 4 drawing

 

[Dabbler]

I've been using LibreCAD - it is free, it is 2D, it is open source. You may/may not care about these things - I started with QCAD, and this is a better fork of that code.

That being said, I'm a CAD novice, but I have a few friends that can help me get over the hard parts if I use LibreCAD, so it is my current go-to to make DXF files...

 

[YYCHM]

What version of LibreCAD and what OS are you using? When I couldn't get it to dimension a rectangle I concluded it just didn't work or didn't play well with WIN10.

 

[Dabbler]

Win 10, I'm running 2.1.3 portable version. I've had very good success with it, but I'm no expert.

The very nice thing about Funsion 360 is that it has oodles of support, and is also free - it just sin't a portable app, and all my apps (nearly) are portable now.

 

[Johnwa]

Dabbler
What do you mean fusion is not portable?

 

[GlenG]

If you are looking for 2D only, then LibreCAD, QCad or Draftsight all work quite well. LibreCAD is open source and QCad is based on the same code but has both the free version and a paid version. Draftsight has both free and pro versions as well and is a Dassult (Solidworks) product.

 

[Dabbler]

The two versions o Fusion I tried needed to be installed, and occupied registry space. Software I use nowadays (with a few notable exceptions) can all run off a USB drive, on anyone's computer, without an install program.

 

[Janger]

I've noticed with Fusion 360 and with Sketchup once I've drawn something then going back to edit a mistake can be quite trying. Lots of trouble editing features. In sketchup I often can't make the change in the way that I want, In fusion I find there are error messages displayed. Today I was trying to delete threaded holes. Just would not work. Sometimes it's easier to just start the drawing again. Today I went back to an earlier version and was able to delete the threaded holes there, then redraw the new features I wanted. Is this typical with other programs too? e.g. SolidWorks? or ?

 

[PeterT]

I'm not familiar with Fusion but when we typically say 'drawing' we mean a specific part of the program that is responsible for making the output (pic 4 in my post). Output could mean a hardcopy printable dimensioned drawing or PDF or other formats like old school DXF that a laser cutter would understand. This is distinctly different than the 'modeling' part of the program which is constructing the virtual part (steps 1,2,3) in my post. So once a part is developed and its considered 'good', no bad geometry issues, no unresolved error messages encountered along the way... then any issues you have at the drawing stage are maybe within the drawing commands. Now there's some things that could be happening that maybe you are not aware of.

Say you had a part with a 1" circular hole & 0.5" square hole some distance apart. Now you make a drawing of this part & dimension between the centers of these hole features and say to another edge. Sometime later you change the round hole diameter to 1.2" and delete the square hole altogether. The part is still valid even though its different. However the drawing hasn't been informed about this change until such time as its re-opened. Now it should update the original diameter to 1.2" but it should also complain saying I cant connect this center distance dimension to what used to be a square hole feature. Its missing, so tell me how to fix it.

Another big issue is file movement & renaming. SW is very fussy about this as I suspect others should be. If you model a part called piston and make a drawing from it, default name piston (typically different drawing .file extension) all is good. The drawing file knows where to find the part file & reflects any changes as above. If you move the file to a different folder or rename the part file, typically bad things happen just like any most programs that rely on these sequential load relationships. You may have to use specific commands when it comes to files which depend on one another. In SW its kind of a mini Explorer within the program. This may seem like a pain, but its there for a really good reason. Its the only way to keep track of files, very important for assemblies of many parts & their respective drawings, revisions etc.

If things like threads or hole sizes are consistently causing grief, that might be a function of program setup. It could be that its trying to load this kind of 'machinery handbook' data from specific template files that have to be installed in specific folders. We run into this all the time at work - program default installation assumes critical system files goes to C:\ Default hard drive called C is getting like VHS tape. We have 25 network drives anymore. My program resides on J, my neighbors is H, user files are on the cloud. So there could be some administrative stuff that is disconnected in your installation. Probably best bet is get on a Fusion forum & post your file. If its an active user group somebody should solve the issue lickety split.

Probably didn't answer your question directly but hope it helps

 

[TheLocalDrunk]

Fusion for 3D
LibreCAD for 2D

Dimensioning in libreCAD is different and there is a different learning curve compared to fusion or sketchup. (Just my 2 cents)

 

[YYCHM]

Tried LibreCAD for a second time and gave up.

QCad was a little more forgiving.

Came up with this.

Haven't a clue why the dimensions are ft and inches after setting the drawing preferences to Engineering and others (2-3 times now). If this is the case then, the drawing is no where near to scale which is what I was expecting???

This after another 3-4 hours of trial and error..... Grrrrr. Flakey freeware you think?

Ya, I know, I have a redundant dimension in there

 

[Dabbler]

Qcad is still using the old commands, which I also find a little easier to use. Last summer I figured out LibreCAD, and found it wonderful. I tried it a week ago and found myself relearning almost everything. I guess I should have stayed in practice!

My good friend has used QCAD for years and never had a glitch. Another, a professional Autocad guy, prefers LibreCAD - I think it is more personal choice.

 

[Janger]

ClarisCAD anybody? I liked that program back in the 2D days....

 

[Chicken lights]

I searched for “drafting”, and didn’t get a lot of results.

Do you HAVE to use a CAD program to draft a drawing? (Drawing? Is that right?)

If you are drafting by hand, what are some things you need to know?

If it’s just one or two parts, are you further ahead to pay to have the drafting done?

 

[Janger]

I took a drafting course in high school. I’m Still using those skills today. All paper and pencil of course. I think it’s worth the investment in time to learn some of those skills. You’ll be much further ahead I think. Another great tool is isometric paper. Pads are available at Lee valley. Makes drawing 3D easier. Here’s one of my scribbles.

http://www.leevalley.com/us/Wood/page.aspx?p=32543&cat=1

 

[Chicken lights]

I took a drafting course in high school. I’m Still using those skills today. All paper and pencil of course. I think it’s worth the investment in time to learn some of those skills. You’ll be much further ahead I think. Another great tool is isometric paper. Pads are available at Lee valley. Makes drawing 3D easier. Here’s one of my scribbles.

http://www.leevalley.com/us/Wood/page.aspx?p=32543&cat=1

You’re aiming for any drafting to be in 3D?