Free of charge and sub £500 CAD programmes

HI - I AM PLAYING WITH WING HELPER

https://www.winghelper.com/default/index.php

THE TROUBLE WITH ALL THESE LUMPS OF SOFTWARE IS THAT ONCE YOU WRAP YOUR HEAD AROUND ONE

AND PUT THE TIME IN TO REALLY LEARN IT - YOU DON'T WANT TO DUMP IT TO LEARN ANOTHER ONE !!!

IT'S GREAT THAT THERE ARE SO MANY BITS OF SOFTWARE OUT THERE

SO NOW SAVING FOR A LASER TABLE MKAYBE ???

THANKS

DAVID - WOODY1958UK - 180440

HI - PLAYING WITH WING HELPER - ANY PACKAGE THAT STARTS WUTH A WING WITH RIBS ON IT CAN'T BE THAT BAD - THANKS - CATCH YOU LATER - TAKE CARE - HAPPY FLYING - DAVID - DAVID - WOODY1958UK - 180440

Alibre Atom is another low cost 3D CAD package that can also do 2D work.

I have used it to good effect in the past.

Alibre Atom3D for hobbyists and model makers (mintronics.co.uk)

@woody1958uk hadn’t come across that bit of software before so will be giving it a go. Creating an elliptical wing with washout and the subsequent ribs can be done in Fusion 360 but it’s quite an involved process so will be interesting to see how this one fares!

This list from All3DP might be useful:

https://all3dp.com/1/best-free-3d-printing-software-3d-printer-program/

On first look it cannot create an elliptical wing or rounded wing tips, so some limitations. But for a straight LE / TE, including tapered, it is very good.

Posted by: @pylonuk

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it struggles with is doing a washed out elliptical wing.

Agreed that this is not the correct place but in answer to your comment, you do a 3D sketch between the root and tip (with washout) then create a plane on that 3D sketch, then a sketch on that new plane that has the elliptical plan form.

Post moved in entirety to the following link. 

CAD package specifically for designing wings for laser cutting | CAD General Chat | BMFA In the Air Tonight

Re WingHelper - I was wrong, it can do an elliptical wing shape.

Sub £500

Winfoil

Can be used for wing, tail and fuse. Designs can be exported as dxf. Windows only. Interface a bit ‘old school’ but looks like it can handle elliptical shapes. 

I have been using Fusion 360 for designs for 3D printing but unfortunately the free version does not allow output to print on paper (pdf) for plans to build my models from.

So I have been using Solid Edge 2D Drafting which is excellent.  There is very little in the way of tutorials on YouTube but Siemens provide good tutorials which you access from the start screen for the program.  All the free or low cost versions of CAD packages I looked at are restricted in the features they allow.  The Siemens one is not and seems very capable.

I have just watched this video about Solid Edge Community The best Professional 3D CAD Software you can use for FREE in 2023? and am thinking that this may be a better option for me than Fusion 360 for 3D printing now that I have got used to drawing with the Siemens package.  He says in the comments below that Siemens are paying him to do a series on Solid Edge Community so I'll watch with interest.

@john-clarke have you tried this in Fusion 360

Thanks Ron, I'll have a look at that.

Ron thanks again for your help, I have tried to print to file and it works if I use one of Fusion 360's training models but if I create a drawing from my own model sometimes the screen greys and it does not work for a while!

I think that a sketch needs to be extruded before a drawing can be created from it; so presumably only lines which are the edges of these extruded faces will be visible.  It seems that one would have to create a 3D model of the whole plane to create a meaningful drawing that you could build from.  Also, each drawing creates a separate document which counts towards the limit of 10 editable documents which is another slight disadvantage.

Solid Edge 2D Drafting is working well so I think I will stick with it for 2D drawings.  I have installed Solid Edge Community (to try its 3D modelling) and I can open my drawings created in Solid Edge 2D Drafting.  These open into a 2D drawing interface which is very handy.

To give some context to my drawing requirements, I am designing models to be built in Pichler Super Board (white polypropylene foam) which I cut out by hand from my drawings.  

If all you want to do is print your designs then you can do that from the DXF file that Fusion 360 can produce, in fact Autodesk have their (free) online viewer from which you can print. LibreOffice is another free software which you can open and print DXF files. But if you are happy using Solid Edge then that is good, at the end of the day whatever works for you is all that matters.