Simple mechanical design software: Need engineering advice

Kodiak · Post by **Kodiak** » 2008-08-05 07:53pm

I was wondering if anyone is aware of a simple mechanical design program out there for designing linkages. I'm working on an idea of mine, and as it's not work-related I'm forced to forgo the work computers (Pro/E, how I miss thee).

When I was in college we used a really simple 2-d program which could have members that rotate, slide, etc, and they could be animated to check for interference. It was like MS Paint with some animation features. Is anyone aware of a program like this that I could get for free/cheap?

salm · Post by **salm** » 2008-08-06 04:48am

Blender? Sure its a 3D Program but that wouldn't keep you from doing 2D stuff and it's got all the animation and modelling features you're going to need. There is, afaik, no function for easily writing measurements onto your design sheet, though, like known from CAD programms.

CaptainZoidberg · Post by **CaptainZoidberg** » 2008-08-06 11:14am

Autodesk Inventor is the best choice.

And idk if blender has the CAD capabilities that you're describing.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2008-08-06 02:13pm

CaptainZoidberg wrote:Autodesk Inventor is the best choice.

And idk if blender has the CAD capabilities that you're describing.

Inventor costs a couple of hundred dollars, though, if i'm not mistaken.

What do you mean with idk?

Kodiak · Post by **Kodiak** » 2008-08-06 04:18pm

salm wrote:
CaptainZoidberg wrote:Autodesk Inventor is the best choice.

And idk if blender has the CAD capabilities that you're describing.
Inventor costs a couple of hundred dollars, though, if i'm not mistaken.

What do you mean with idk?

idk = I Don't Know

salm · Post by **salm** » 2008-08-06 06:35pm

Well, it's got all the spline stuff you'd need to create a 2D drawing and it's got loads and loads of animation features. It might be a bit of an overkill complexity wise, though.

CaptainZoidberg · Post by **CaptainZoidberg** » 2008-08-07 12:01am

I don't like Blender because of the difficult user interface, but it's small so it's probably worth a shot.

Also Kodiak is there any way that you can convince your company to get you a home version of autocad or inventor? That's pretty awesome software, and it's nice even if all you're doing is playing around.

Also try some of the open source software listed here. I have no personal experience with any of them so I can't really give you advice:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:F ... n_software

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2008-08-07 06:58am

Blender may be good for imprecise artwork, but it's shit for entering in precision drawings quickly. Use something else.

Karrick · Post by **Karrick** » 2008-08-08 11:42pm

You could perhaps grab a free trial version of pro/e? I don't think that it would have all the features enabled, but it might have what you need. I'm pretty sure even the student licensed version I got to play with two years ago was missing some features, but we could still design stuff (and animate it).

I also feel I have to mention the stories I used to hear about people designing stuff on their own time, using no company resources, only to have the company get all the rights to whatever it was they designed because they were employees.

pdf27 · Post by **pdf27** » 2008-08-14 05:06pm

How complex is it? Could you just knock something up with paper/sticks?

Kodiak · Post by **Kodiak** » 2008-08-14 06:09pm

pdf27 wrote:How complex is it? Could you just knock something up with paper/sticks?

I've been trying that, but some of the sliding linkages involved are resistant to paper & brads. I'm actually thinking of buying some tinker-toys.