TurboCAD Query: Maintaining Rendering Acrss File-types?

It was quite entertaining to read (again) the almost unbelievable mental topsyturvifications (*) of Mr. Graham.

But, as it seems, only a human tutor can eventually lead him out of his misery, why not doing that 'over the 'net'?

There is a small program called Teamviewer. Maybe there are others, but that's what I used in my professional life. With its help, a tutor can log in into the pupil's computer and guide him as if they were in the same room. I'm sure colleague Andy could do that.

But I fear that Mr. Graham would immediately dismiss such dangerous things. Not in his lifetime would he allow a stranger having access to his computer.

(*) A nice word I found in the Leo translator program, I hope it's appropriate.

I take my coat...

Hans

Hi Nigel.

Don't lose heart. I've no interest in selling TurboCAD but if you want to do it that way, I'm sure you can. You mentioned about the assembly of a crank, so I thought I would draw one up and make a vid out of it for you. I'm pretty sure there isn't anything here that requires the platinum features of TC.

I am sorry to say I stopped the video half way through. No fault of yours, but this has to be the clumsiest piece of cad software I have ever seen. If this is what Nigel is using it's no wonder he isn't having much luck. I downloaded a trial of tubocad last year. I thought it was awful then. I deleted it less than an hour later.

Thanks for taking the time to show Nigel what turbocad can do, I didn't watch to the end, but I think it's safe to say you did the crankshaft.

Well I did watch to the end and like Lee also downloaded the trial last year when a similar thread was ongoing and I can see why anyone would struggle with Turbocad after watching that video. At best it could be called 2.5D but even the basic drawing of the 2D outlines is so complicated no wonder it took 13mins to do rather than less than 3mins in my video to get the basic webs, pins and shafts drawn. Probably needs a lot more time to do fillets and chamfers etc.

To take a couple of examples.

Laying out the initial 1" spaced lines, I would just draw one, select it and then do a linear pattern at 1/2" or 1" spacing If I wanted guide lines though they are nor often needed in Alibre or could have turned on snap to grid if needed.

Not sure how easy it would be to make alterations to say crank throw, Would all those individual lines need altering one at a time or how easy it is to go back through the various stages but in the likes of Alibre I would just need to select that initial sketch of the crank pin and enter a new value for it's distance from ctr and click return. Every other operation will then alter by itself.

Triming lines and tangents. I also noticed this with MOI having to do radial lines to get an intersection to a tangental line to define the point to trim the excess is not needed in Alibre of F360. They put a node for want of a better word where the line tangents the circle so the point the excess is trimmed to is automatically put there for you.

Joining up the shapes at the end, Alibre treats it as a single part so no need to do this which could get very complicated with more complex parts.

Thanks for taking the time Andy at least we have a better idea of what Nigel is up against.

Edited By JasonB on 15/04/2023 07:58:09

Well I'm impressed with your fluency in TC Andy - although when I still used TC 2D, I took Paul Tracey's (Paul the CAD) advice to have a 'clean' screen and use keystokes instead of mouse clicks. I assume you may do this in practice and possibly just used the mouse for the purposes of your video. If not, then I would very much advise you to learn the keystoke alternatives, they make TC use so much easier.

Other than that, I'm afraid you just managed to remind me why I didn't get on with TC 3D. I always felt that TC 3D evolved from it's 2D roots and I think your demo just confirms this to me. So, I'm impressed that you can make TC 3D work well for you but I'm not at all tempted to use anything other than a modern 3D CAD - in my case Solid Edge. The difference is like Night & Day.

Regards,

IanT

For Jason and others, I just wanted to clear the confusion that in MoI you have to access a box to enter values. This isn't usually the case, as I show in this updated video. It's also not necessary to "...do radial lines to get an intersection to a tangental line to define the point to trim the excess...", so I show another way in this video of a five bearing, fully filleted and chamfered crankshaft - all in less than 7 minutes.

Please forgive the faffing about, where I'm drawing the first main bearing near the beginning of the video.

Martin.

Thanks Martin

Martin,

I would do something similar in Design Spark Mechanical. I can't recommend DS at the moment because it seems that RS components who supply DS (free), are going to turn it into a subscription only package, similar to Fusion 360. I don't know if it will be cloud based or not.

I might get back into FreeCAD. I used it for a year or two before switching to DS. It falls short in certain areas, and the latest version won't run on two of my computers, including one that has win11, 16gb of memory with a 4gb graphics card and fast SSD. I use 0.19 which runs OK. And it's free, forever?

I found Andy's TC video fascinating. The workflow is very different from FreeCAD, MOI, Alibre, Fusion360, and Solid Edge. TC reminded me of the thought process needed to translate a 3D object into a 2D first or third angle projection, a method that might well appeal to a 2D draughtsman. Although I'm sure I could get used to it, the approach goes against the grain for me. It's not how I think.

FreeCAD and chums are more realistic in my mind, in that models are constructed by creating solid lumps and then shaping them by cutting and extruding. Solids are manipulated into shape, and only 'drawn' when the model is finished. Even more realistic when the software allows related parts to be assembled with working joints. This type of modelling is very like actual milling, turning, drilling and fitting, except there's less need to plan ahead because all operations are reversible.

Dave

I was never trying to sell TC. You should use whatever CAD system you want to. If it helps to understand how bad I actually am, I'd have done way less 2D layout if it had been an intermediate task. Nigel did mention that he likes 2D TC techniques, and I hopefully demonstrated that there isn't a massive gulf between 2D and 3D. Maybe people would still disagree with that, but I don't think they're even vaguely separate things.

It is fair to say that I do many more 2D drawings than I do 3D ones, and I actually make money from those. That's because most things I get made, are in sheet metal. I think if I had a five axis machining centre on tap, I might think differently, but not everything useful comes from a billet. As it is, I mostly use the 3D modelling for the 3D printer.

As an example I'm making a battery mount for a Chinese micro camera. It is 3D printed but is like a plastic moulding. That was just completely different in the way it arose. With that I did a model of the camera, then I took an imprint from the camera model. After that I just created the battery compartment and the passages for the wiring and spring contacts.

I don't really mind about how critical people are of my CAD skills. Nor my bone headed persistence for using a tool as bad as TC. Really, it doesn't feel like a chore. I don't really have any set way of doing things at all. I just have an idea in my head, and it expands out to suit whatever. For some people it's about creating a perfect CAD model. I don't really want to be the best CAD person in the world. I just want to make stuff. If you're doing patterns for castings, it doesn't even matter if the model is a bit wonky. If you're making something from solid on a manual machine, the 3D model is all but useless.

What I disagree about is that 2D is a bad, old, passe or irrelevant philosophy. That's like saying that the teachings of Euclid or Pythagoras are no longer important. Know your first principles, because sooner or later they will serve you well. More important than that, don't think of CAD as an end. If you really need to create a 3D model so that you can get 2D dimensions, think of that drawing output as the beginning of actually making something. If you do, sooner or later you won't need a 3D model, you'll just see it in your head. You might not even need a drawing. The less drawings you do, the more stuff you get to make and test!

It's not how good your drawing is. It's how well what you drew actually works. Even failure isn't bad, because if you fail, you make it better the next time.

Edited By Andy Ash on 15/04/2023 17:46:59

It's because of things like that, I took the plunge and forked out for MoI. It runs on just about anything, stores files locally, doesn't have any 'trick' agreements and doesn't crash. Every three or four years an update is released, which is $100 currently. The author starts work straight away on the next update and releases new betas to paid-up users as work progesses.

Martin.

"I don't really mind about how critical people are of my CAD skills"

Quite the opposite Andy, having tried to use TC in 3D mode, I was very impressed wiith your CAD skills. I never got that far with it. I've always thought that 'what you know' is 'what you prefer' where CAD is concerned.

Whilst I was just '2D', then I was very happy with TurboCAD but when I wanted to design for 3D Print, then I moved to Open SCAD. It was a much easier then to 'hop' over to SE once I wanted to do more complicated objects (and my 'logical' skills weren't quite good enough to use SCAD).

Regards,

IanT

As Ian says I think were were all being critical of Turbocad not you Andy.

We all have different needs from our chosen cad package(s), Nigel seems to mostly want 2D for workshop drawings though 3D assemblies would allow him to visualise and trial fit parts before committing to metal.

Myself I also "build" a whole engine in 3D and check how all parts move in relation to the rest, see if it simply looks right, etc. Only then will I start to make things so will mostly pull dimensions off my 3D parts and make simple hand drawings based on those, more complex parts I will do a 2D drawing derrived from the 3D. If I'm going to CNC machine them the 3D model is used for the CAM, even if a 2D or 2.5D machining job having the 3D part just lets me click on a surface to give heights or depending on path the computer will pick up those heights itself. A do a fair bit of 3D shaped parts so much like a 3D printer need 3D input.

I think even for sheet metal 3D is useful, there was a recent thread where I drew the part in 3D, roughly assembled assembled them all and then used the CAD packages "sheet metal "to flatten out the part which makes allowance for bend radii etc. Doing that with just 2D would mean calculating all the bends and stretching the flat sheet accordingly.

3D is also good for the furniture I design for a living, most of my clients are not technically trained so find it hard to visualise from plans and elevations but send then a coloured 3D interactive file they where they can move the part about, zoom in etc and they can see what they will get. Its a hell of a lot easier than the isometric or perspective drawings I used to do by hand and so easy when there are changes or you want to show several options

I agree with Jason and Ian Andy. It wasn't your skills I found lacking.

Jason -

Yes, exactly what I want, with 3D as an extra aid to the initial design. I know the orthographic elevations can be derived from the isometric representation.

My problem was not of "make" of programme although Turbo CAD was the only proper CAD system at the time (about 8 or 10 years ago) readily and affordably available to home users; and with the advantage it still has, of outright, simple purchase.

TurboCAD's 2D mode is probably no harder to learn than any other, and it was sold with a tutorial CD made by its agent, Paul ('The CAD' ) Tracey who realised the potential market in model-engineering. Indeed, he decorated the CD's box label with miniature-locomotive sub-assemblies drawn in 3D.

'

Rather, my problem was not knowing the basic principles of CAD, not TurboCAD, just CAD, common to almost all makes. The two books I have already cited (by Brown and by Hughes, written for amateur engineers) are the ONLY ones I have found that explain them!

Unless you know these principles, you will will not know why Snaps, Work-planes, Layers, Blocks, etc. If you don't know it's probably because no-one tells you. Most of the tutorial material, if any, from the CAD publishers is rote exercises without explanation. So when you try your own drawings, failure part-way through can just leave you floundering.

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No doubt some makes are easier to learn than others, but it was not knowing the common principles that caused me more problems than the individual programme. It took me quite a while, for example, to realise a Snap is vital because it is a mathematical meeting-point far, finer than the visual image, and necessary for many other tools to work!

'

Similarly, Individual programmes can have traps for the innocent beyond simply not knowing which little symbol to select.

I have only just learnt that the three versions of each edition-number of TurboCAD differ by more than just menus and peripheral functions. Those differences result from of two fundamentally different ways to represent solid objects; and it is very likely not knowing that led to many of the difficulties I, and perhaps others, have with its 3D mode.

A tool might "work", but behind the screen might not be acting as you see and think, leading to frustration later. And you don't know that because no-one has told you.

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As far as TurboCAD goes, once you've grasped the common CAD basics and its own basics and expectations, its 2D mode is relatively straightforward, yet very powerful and flexible indeed. Just be careful to draw in 2D, only on a 2D template!

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(If I understand the web-site correctly, TurboCAD's basic 'Deluxe' versions draw "solids" as surfaces, whereas the 'Professional' and 'Platinum' versions, to which you can up-grade the 'Deluxe' forms, treat them mathematically as if actually solid. The whole thing is very enigmatic though, thanks to the different generation tools it offers to do ostensibly the same thing.

I am guessing that Alibre (and SE?) uses the mathematically-solid principle entirely for such tools as the immediate "negative"-extrusion cuts, and fillets and chamfers, to work as fully and immediately as they do. TC's 'Deluxe' versions at least, use Boolean subtracting a second "solid" to create a recess or hole; and their chamfer and fillet abilities are very limited.

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I am tempted to try Alibre again, via its one-month free trial; and I have indexed its web-site. The purchase price looks reasonable and seems outright, not the first of some disingenuous "subscription" model. I did try it a while back with the MEW series, but "lost" it. I found SE very confusing by its drawing tools and by its rote-learning exercises based on assuming already knowing Siemens' own quirks.

Edited By Nigel Graham 2 on 16/04/2023 11:14:03

Okay, so what is your plan from here?

Martin.

Just to correct a point I made in an earlier thread. Designspark Mechanical will still be offered as a free programme. It is called Explorer. The subscription models are, Creator and Engineer. They have a lot more features than Explorer and have a monthly charge. I must say that Creator looks promising, but at £9.99 per month (for how long I wonder?) I would look at other cad packages such as MOI or Alibre before I took a financial plunge.

That's why I took the Alibre plunge

It's more than adequate for a hobbyist and ticks the local file storage and use it for life boxes

Things can change fast in software world

Martin:

Did you intend to reply by copying my entire post or was it some blip by the forum?

To answer your question though, my plan (using the term loosely) is first, some careful thinking!