2d Drafting Advice

[georgem]

Hi

 

I am starting a new business that involves drafting in 2D and I was looking at getting CAD although its very expensive for us. I have just started to get the hand of it and realised I probably dont need the 3d capacity only the 2D for technical drawings.

 

So I was wandering if there any other cheaper competitors out there or cheap ways of getting CAD or its equivalents.

 

Any help would really be appreciated.

 

Cheers

[ReMark]

Look at progeCAD or Bricscad for starters. Much cheaper than full AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT.

[f700es]

Good choices from ReMark and look at freebies DraftSight and DoubleCAD XT as well.

[ReMark]

One other cheap alternative is the AutoCAD-clone called ZWcad. Pretty sure they're Chinese though.

 

All of the programs mentioned will read and write to the DWG standard.

[georgem]

Thanks guys I will check those out.

[Jack_O'neill]

Draftsight is free and works very well. Bricscad is better and is in the $500 range. It will do 3d if you ever need it, plus lisp and vba. Those two features alone will recoup the price in the time it will save you.

[ReMark]

ZWcad reads/writes 2010 DWG and DXF file formats. I'm not sure about the other programs but I recommend checking before purchasing in case you share files with other companies or clients.

[georgem]

Its mainly for product development so I am only dealing with fabricators. Most of them take or need .dwg

[f700es]

Shoot start off with a freebie to get going and then invest in a pay one. Or I guess since most offer a 30 day full demo one could go that route. All of these should get you going. Let us know which ones you try and what you like or don't like about them. This question comes up from time to time and some real feed back would be nice to pass on to other users

 

Sean

Edited August 11, 2011 by f700es
typo

[georgem]

Sure thing Sean.

I have infact used the 30 day trail on autocad, I even installed windows on my Mac so I could get two trials haha.

I will get some installed tonight.

[ReMark]

MAC! You said MAC?! To my knowledge none of the other IntelliCAD programs run on a Mac. Somebody want to confirm that (yes/no/maybe)?

[georgem]

Its not a problem if they are windows based as I have bootcamp so I can run windows.

[f700es]

Well as a user of both I have tried PowerCADD, HighDesign and an older version of MacDraft. None seemed to have the speed of AutoCAD to me. Now DraftSight does offer an OSX version of their software. So no bootcamp needed for that one. Did you make the leap to Lion yet? My machine is on Tiger and will probably stay there as I almost never use it anymore.

[Tankman]

Thanks guys I will check those out.

 

And try DesignCAD, a friend used it (some years ago), I tried it. Seemed nice, easy, useful, and inexpensive too.

 

http://www.imsidesign.com/Products/DesignCADSeries/DesignCADv21/tabid/1837/Default.aspx?gclid=CMrD566p2qoCFcnc4AoduUZX-A

[Jack_O'neill]

Draftsight is easier to use that Doublecad XT, and both are free. Doublecad can be a little quirky. Both will give you completely compatible dwg and dxf files, as will Bricscad. There is no mac version of Bricscad yet, but I see rumblings on their website about possibilities in the future.

[f700es]

No DWF in DraftSight, just checked Nor in AutoCAD WS

[Alex Moiceanu]

You can check this link http://www.justcad.com/downloads.html.

You can download JustCAD for free but will limit the load size of drawings and layers to 1000 entities or you can purchase it for just $39 dollars,for a fully functional copy.

Pretty cheap, no!