A good 2D dwg package ?

Hi All,

I need to make a few reasonably tidy dwgs. Life is a bit to short for learning 3D so I'm just wondering what's out there, and free, that will help me make some 2D dwgs reasonably quickly and without too much argy-bargy ?

Gerry

A search of the internet will throw up a good number of candidates, depending on your computer platform I personally use QCAD Pro for 2D work, having worked my way through a few freebies. There is a free-to-use version of QCAD downloadable from:

here

It is a full, unfettered program and has versions for Windows, MacOS and Linux operating systems. There are a number of members on this forum who use this program, so help is on hand if needed. I stayed away from the ones that store drawings in the "cloud" - but that's just my personal preference.

John

I use the free version of QCAD nowadays and find it pretty good. I've used several others in the past. QCAD makes some things easier than my previous packages, others more difficult.

There are tutorials online too.

I'm sure you will get plenty of other suggestions.

Regards, Andy

Solid Edge 2D is free and said to be a professional level program. Handles AutoCAD files well apparently.

Clive

I use Autocad by Autodesk. Amazing program that I have used since it ran on Dos, When you had all sorts of trouble with memory allocation. Especially if you were using a puck & tablet for the menu system. Nestle UK bought it & could not get it to work. I spent weeks getting it refined for them. Very expensive but 1 of the best. It is a cow to learn all the commands. Very complex but good. Nowadays it learns from you. After a few inputs that you make it asks. Do you always want to do this. You say yes & in future your key commands are obeyed. It saves in .DWG format but you can export in DXF or many other formats too. There are many ad ons. I had the Electrical one for doing panel drawings. There are architectural & engineering ones too. But I think for the ham it may be a bit too expensive unless you know a short cut. Massage me if you want to try it.

One more voice for QCAD.

I use TurboCAD Deluxe - which seems to be the Marmite of the 2D CAD world - you either love it or hate it.

But I've been using TC/DL for over 20 years now and it does all I need in the way of 2D. My latest version was purchased from Paul (the CAD) at the Midlands show two years ago and wasn't expensive. My first copy (v4) came on a magazine cover for free.

I'd recommend watching Paul the CAD's YouTubes on TurboCAD - I changed to keyboard commands as a result and it makes such a difference from using the pull down menus - very much faster and easier.

Regards,

IanT

Gerry try emachineshop i use to make 2d drawings and find very easy to use

Geoff

With the apparent demise of Draftsight (which used to be free but has moved to a subscription model), I have downloaded the free versions of Qcad, Librecad and, most recently, Nanocad

Apart from seeing how they opened my existing Draftsight drawings (Nanocad seems to be better than Qcad for this in limited testing), I have not had a need to produce a new drawing so far. And my copy of Draftsight is still working at the moment.

I tried Solid Edge 2D some time ago & found it more difficult to use than Draftsight, which was near identical to the Autocad Lt I was used to.

Nigel B.

I recently looked at QCAD. The instructions for getting the trial widget to go away are out of date (at least for windows 64 bit version). I had to go to help/about/plugins on the menu bar to find which dll files were listed as part of the professional setup and delete them. Otherwise it does what is expected from a cad program, just slight differences from what I am used to.

Martin C

Another Tcaddie laddie here.

Started with the DOS and v2 versions, but only really understood how to use it with v4. Would also recommend Paul the Cad as a good source of software / info. Currently using TurboCad v18.2, but that's not the latest.

Pete

Since my Draftsight expired I've tried Solid Edge, Qcad and TurboCad. SE has a fatal issue for me in that you can't tie linetype/colour to layer. I then found Qcad easier to use than TC, although I'm sure with perseverance I'd get used to TC. There is a free 15 day trial of TC, so you can give it a try, then it's £49, which isn't expensive. QC isn't quite free, the free version shuts down after 20 minutes or so and you have to save/re-start. I'm going to invest my £30. Just one issue, if you are sent something drawn in SE and open t in QC the text is all scrambled. What was written as 'h' in SE comes out as '\ftxtlb0lli0llc0lp34;\W1.;h'. This both as dwg and dxf, and with SE fonts and regular fonts. I'm sure there is a way round this, but I'm going for QCAD as I said. Drawings created in DS and TC open up fine in Qcad, and drawings from SE open in TC and DS, so it is something about SE that QC doesn't like. I'm not going to let it worry me.

Once you're up and running with QC it is well worth investigating using keyboard commands rather than the pull down things, for instance 'CR30' will draw a 30 radius circle where you click the cursor, lv10<tab>s draws a vertical upwards line, lv10<tab>e vertical down and so on. Once you get used to it it's a lot faster