Oh! No! BSOD!

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PeteThePen1
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Oh! No! BSOD!

Post by PeteThePen1 » Wed Apr 22, 2020 1:15 pm

Hi folks

Hope you are all weathering the lock down OK and enjoying the novel experience of meeting friends via Zoom. It seems that one large tech company is not too keen on that idea just now. I have just received the latest Win 10 update and in just a few short hours my very useful old laptop was reduced to low value electro-scrap. Fortunately, I knew that it was possible to boot computers with a bootable Linux CD and then get at the files on the HD, etc. However, being in lock down at my sister in law's house, the CD plugin was not to hand. All we had was a very old data stick that we found in my wife's pencil case. Welcome to Small Core Linux that I was able to unpack onto the data stick. That gave me a very fast working laptop but not one that was particularly nice to use.

Serendipity struck when I foolishly visited a local supermarket that I try not to use. They have now made social distancing much more difficult by re-arranging the store layout so that one must go down every aisle and back up the next one and thus pass every single shelf in the store. That is great if you know where they keep what and have your shopping list in that order. Most local shoppers do not so lots of people were coming back up the one way system... Anyway, I eventually passed a display with some SD cards so added that to my single other purchase and some time later checked out. The SD card has enable me to now install Lubuntu which is much nicer to use but a whole lot bigger.

Now for those of you who are thinking "Why is this twit rabbiting on about computers on a Steam Boating site?", I will now explain. Under Win 7, 8 and 10 the laptop used to host TurboCAD 18 and 21 in which I did most of my drawings. That was useful as I have drawn stuff and passed it on to fellow SBA members for comment and vica versa.

What I am interested to know from the experience of Forum Members are what are the best CAD programs to consider for use on Linux? I am sure that eventually I will get around to setting up Win 8 in Virtual Box and re-install TurboCAD, but that is fairly large job that I cannot do just yet as all the master discs are at home not here.

Thanks if you got this far.

Pete
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Re: Oh! No! BSOD!

Post by TriangleTom » Wed Apr 22, 2020 2:09 pm

Are you looking for 2D or 3D CAD for Linux?
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Re: Oh! No! BSOD!

Post by fredrosse » Wed Apr 22, 2020 3:13 pm

Another point regarding CAD software.

I have always made conventional engineering drawings for all the machinery that I have built, or had built by various machine shops. These drawings have had the same basic format for over 100 years. For most of my working life, the drawings were made with conventional drafting tools, either pencil drawings, or India ink drawings when I was doing patent applications back in the 1960s. In the 1990s I began making machinery drawings using COREL DRAW! 4, which I have used up to the present. Very nice drawings can be made with COREL, but now I must switch to another programme.

I have mostly made machine parts by myself, in my mid-20th century machine shop, but recently had to have machinery made by shops having larger capacity machine tools. I made some conventional drawings, and went out to machine shops, only to find that virtually all robust machine shops cannot use conventional drawings. Now virtually everything is done with CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machining centers, and the software used requires the input files to be in some form of CAD (Computer Aided Design)

Does anybody know what software I need to get to have compatability with this new CAD - CNC world? I have e-machine shop, but they charge about 3x to 10x what it will cost me if I get the right software.
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Re: Oh! No! BSOD!

Post by TriangleTom » Wed Apr 22, 2020 4:26 pm

Fred-

If your machine shop is anything like my employer, they're probably going to ask for a STEP or IGES file from you. Your best option would probably be to download the free edition of Autodesk Fusion360. This will let you create the components you need and export them as one of the filetypes mentioned above.

Also, if anyone is looking for an extremely powerful CAD program, the student edition of SolidWorks is available freely to members of the Experimental Aircraft Association.

-Tom
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Re: Oh! No! BSOD!

Post by DetroiTug » Wed Apr 22, 2020 7:15 pm

Fred, That is the problem with Corel, it's great for presentation, but useless in cam program, the reasons are many, broken line segments, arcs that are not really arcs, but multi segment arcs that are again, not joined, no real precision of entities.

The best cheapest cad cam package I know of is Bobcad v21 or hobbylite as I think they call it now. It's really a 2.5d package, but it can do 3D, with difficulty somewhere in between income tax returns and root canal, I'm exaggerating a bit, but there are much simpler 3D solids modeling programs available. 2D milling and drilling and code generation in bobcad is dirt simple, some of drawings I post here were done with it.

The last record I have v21 can be gotten with training CD's and dongle for about 200. Its usually priced higher but they will haggle. I once bought ten complete packages for 1500. And I don't have anymore of them for sale. It has most common file formats for output, .dxf is probably the most universal, it does that.

I use it and rely on it, but you may not like it at all.

One, other thing,if you call these vultures they will pester you to buy more, so maybe use a cellphone so you can block their number, and use another email account that you don't care about the spam, sorry if this sounds harsh, but that is what comes with inexpensive software. Overly zealous sales people.

That software is so old that there are other places to get it,if ya know what I mean..have a look around ebay etc might CD and dongle package for sale.

I probably should just delete this, every time I suggest these people on a forum, it just looks bad, but I'm just being honest about them. Its a shame really, they have decent products, but their sales team is ridiculous, and I would never suggest them to friends without warning them first. Ron
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Re: Oh! No! BSOD!

Post by PeteThePen1 » Thu Apr 23, 2020 11:38 am

Hi Folks

Very interesting to hear what you have to say. In response to Tom, I guess that 2D will do as, like Fred, I had always done paper drawings with Indian ink until I came across a bargain copy of TurboCAD with decent instructions and began the conversion to CAD.

I was amused to hear about the issue of the workshop that refused the paper drawings. I almost had the same issue with the sheet metal shop that did the casing for my boiler. However, they were very 'customer focused' and the sales lady discussed my initial drawing at length and then suggested that if I could generate a somewhat higher quality 'traditional' set of drawings, she would convert them to the necessary format for their equipment. She was clearly an excellent CAD draughtswoman (If that is the correct title) as she had gone through my initial drawing with a fine tooth comb.

Another question I am afraid. Ron. which OS will your suggestions run under?

Regards

Pete
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Re: Oh! No! BSOD!

Post by DetroiTug » Thu Apr 23, 2020 1:29 pm

Pete,

The suggestions I made run in Windows, most CAD programs seem to be Windows bound, there are simply not enough Mac and Linux users to warrant developing separate versions, as I understand it. Virtually all of the PC based CNC control programs operate in Windows OS. There is one Linux based CNC program called EMC/EMC2 that was contributed to open source by the US Government, I think that is where Linux came from, US military. Anyways, I'm not aware of any CAD programs that operate in Linux, you could hop over to sourceforge.net and have a look in their open source Linux library and see if there is something you can use. I deal with people and their beloved PC's on a daily basis, we hate to put the old dog down, but when it's time, it's time 🙂 The best solution to all these issues is typically the same, a new PC. Of course you probably know that. Software Developers are continually upgrading to keep pace with the hardware upgrades, which simply renders the old hardware obsolete eventually. For CAD systems, a Windows system is the most universal. And too, and I've invested enough time in a non-paying support role which grants me the liberty to state, when it matters, never use a laptop of any kind, desktop IBM type PC's are far more stable and reliable, and easily upgraded if needed.

BSOD's are generally hardware related. A new driver conflicting with older hardware.

Update. I just went and looked over on sourceforge, and recognized one called Librecad. I recall a few people telling me they were using it. All of my Linux related memories are ten years back and further. Due to its incompatibility and stability of 64 bit systems, most everyone runs Windows now.

Ron
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Re: Oh! No! BSOD!

Post by TriangleTom » Thu Apr 23, 2020 6:07 pm

I'm also going to have to recommend LibreCAD for Linux. It's been a few years since I've used it, but I remember it being pretty good for what it was.
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Re: Oh! No! BSOD!

Post by PeteThePen1 » Thu Apr 23, 2020 8:37 pm

Hi Ron, Tom and Steamboating Friends

Thanks for the suggestion of FreeCAD. It is one that I had stumbled across in trawling the internet. I have managed to install it and looked at a random drawing file that I happened to have available. It looks interesting and may tempt me into getting to grips with 3D.

Having CAD on the laptop is not really a 'serious' use of the app. It simply enables me to browse drawings in the living room so that I can be present rather than 'away sitting in front of that wretched computer'. I have also found it useful to take into the garage with a drawing that I want to make. I only have an A4 printer but do all my drawings as big as possible, usually 1:1 and these are done on the desktop machine which has a nice big screen.

Thanks for all your thoughts. The Lubuntu installation is so much better than Win 10 - wish I had migrated ages ago.

Pete
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