Solidworks

I was told that EAA members can get a copy free. I don't know anything about the details and can't say for certain that this is the case.
 
I have plenty to say. What's your interest?

EAA members do get for free what is essentialy the student edition. The included tutorials as well as what's available on YouTube can get you pretty far.

That said, for personal use, I'm quickly becoming a fan of OnShape.
 
Just be aware that it's not something you just pick up and use to any effectiveness without a lot of patience and willingness to learn.
 
It's what my guys use at work. Better than anything else I am aware of for fairly large 3d models and assemblies, in our case up to about 2000 parts. Way more stable than inventor. Way easier than proe.
 
At work I use Solidworks to design aerospace components. It works great especially at the assembly level. Some add-on software is available for FEA and CFD analysis. We used to use 2D AutoCAD but we are migrating away from it. It's great having the ability to take detail part "solid models" and bringing them into an assembly and rotating them around to evaluate fit and function. That isn't possible with 2D AutoCAD. However, if you never used Solidworks before it would take more than a few hours to get practical use out of it.
 
I had to learn it a few years ago when I found a company that could produce some parts I needed using SLS (Selective Laser Sintering). If I could provide them Solidworks 3D files, the cost of the parts was much cheaper.

Great program, but very steep learning curve. Sadly, I haven't used it in years and I've probably forgot 99% of it. :(
 
Great EAA is handing out free solidworks. Now we can have more aircraft vaporware kickstarters...
 
In school (mechanical engineering) we're taught Creo Parametric which is less user friendly than solidworks but also much more powerful. The crossover between Creo and Solidworks is pretty quick though. Catia is by far the best for aerospace. It is specifically designed by the creators of solidworks (Dassault) for the purpose of designing aircraft. It's also pretty tricky to use and very different from solidworks or creo.

If you have more specific questions let me know.
 
I'm a certified expert.
The community is one of the best, there's most likely a local user's group you can meet up with.
What do you want to do with it?

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk
 
NX is quite popular too
 
I own a small tool and die shop and have been using SW for close to 15 yrs now. Like has already been said; you will not pick it up in a day or two but very nice once you understand it. Training and supports is typically first class.
 
We use SolidWorks for all our mechanical design. There are many powerful third party add-ons such as finite element analysis and optical design.

Having said that... check out onshape.com. It is FULLY on the cloud and you can get a free account with limited space but enough to try different things. Is it as powerful as SolidWorks? No but you might not need all that SolidWorks has to offer and it is much cheaper (as in free in some cases to a small monthly subscription). I'm not associated with it just pretty impressed.
 
Glad I opened this thread. I'm an EAA member and didn't know they provided SolidWorks. I used the student edition when I was one and loved it. Lately I've been using FreeCad which is powerful, free, and open source, but not without bugs and quirks. I'll be checking out OnShape too.
 
I haven't used it in a few years but I will tell you I am by no means a computer guru and taught myself. With that being said, I could barely use ProE in college despite being taught by an instructor how to use it. SolidWorks is pretty user friendly and you can do about anything with it. I know in my industry, it's pretty popular for design work with CNC parts. Sounds like a lot of these other guys are way more up on it than I am, though I would offer some insight from a semi-computer dummy like myself.
 
I used it in college 15 years ago. It was very user friendly then, hopefully even better now. Our final project for the CAD class was multi-tool. Make each tool in Solid Works, then put them into an assembly. The biggest PITA was the corkscrew.
 
I got my degree in Architectural Drafting, using AutoCAD, and now build all sorts of custom parts for vehicles. I also own some CNC equipment for building those parts. After years of building 3D parts in 2D using AutoCAD I finally made the switch to SolidWorks. It's a very different interface, and a VERY different mindset for how to build something, and most of the guys in my classes that came from AutoCAD had a lot of trouble with that. If you've never used ACAD this won't be an issue, and if you have you simply have to switch that off and stop trying to make SW work like ACAD. Once you give up on that it's not too bad. I would highly recommend taking a class at your local community college though. You can learn it yourself using youtube tutorials, but taking the classes taught me a lot of little tricks that sped the process up greatly. Best part is since I'm now no longer college aged there are a ton of grants and things that cover the cost. I don't think those classes cost me a thing other than time. The software on the other hand....
 
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