Technical drawing software

Hello,

I want to make some drawings of the robot I am building. I also want tp use is to design some circuit boards (later on).

Does anyone knows a free software solution (no trial versions)?

I've already seen smart-draw, but I don't know what the difference is between the free and full version?

What kind of software do u use?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers :slight_smile:

http://sketchup.google.com/

This is a brilliant general purpose 3d visualization toolset, but not particulary great at any field.
(neither technical drawings nor PCBs)

Eagle CAD is a good PCB design program.

Most people around these forums will probably use EAGLE for circuit boards but some use TARGET or other software...

As far as drawings (and 3d stuff) are concerned I use solidworks, or occasionally other software depending on what I'm doing but they aren't free...

If anyone knows of a good free 3d drawing program then please point it out...

And no-one say google sketchup - I said good software! :wink:

[edit]Someone said it... Arghh[/edit]

Mowcius

And no-one say google sketchup - I said good software! :wink:

Sketchup is GREAT
:wink:

Well, I haven't used Sketchup, but I've seen some of the 3d creations, not bad..

But there's always Blender, but will probably take a bit more "learning" to get into it, but it's FREE, and you can make AWESOME graphics with it, even some companies have made video games using it, just to show that it can be done. :slight_smile:
Oh, by the way, there are a LOT of video tutorials on using blender, just google Blender Tutorials and you'll be good to go.

There's a freeware clone of Autocad out there.

http://www.lis.inpg.fr/realise_au_lis/kicad/

Neil: I downloaded progreSOFT and gave it a try. I'm an old hand with AutoCAD and found that progreSOFT was fundamentally the same thing, at least after a few minutes of doing various constructions. It's probably worth looking into for the hobby community.

progreSOFT sounds cool... I have used blender but personally found it hard to use and just plain annoying... You can make good stuff with most software but sometimes it's rather difficult...

Mowcius