CAD / 3D Rendering programs.

[NICKYPOO]

I'm looking to upgrade my design set up and I'be been running Solid for so long that I'm admittedly out of the proverbial loop on other programs. Does anyone have any opinions or suggestions?

[somebodyelse5]

I'm looking to upgrade my design set up and I'be been running Solid for so long that I'm admittedly out of the proverbial loop on other programs. Does anyone have any opinions or suggestions?

solidworks is pretty much the best...why not just get the 2011 version?

[NICKYPOO]

Just sticking my toes in the water. Solid in not without it's issues but, if it is the lesser of two evils then it is what it is. Thanks for the reply though somebody.

[Joeprunc]

It really depends on what you are using your 3D CAD for. Our company has been using AutoCAD since around 1997. We primarily use the 2D aspects for shop drawings.

We began to interweave SolidWorks into our designs. As an engineering I absolutely love using SolidWorks and love all the features. But for our company and needs it is definitely overkill. It roughly takes 2-3 times as long to design and generate drawings. We use some design software to perform all the required calculations. That program spits out required dimensions into AutoCAD, but we have not been able to take these values and generate a 3D solidworks model. So essentially we then have to design everything 100% from scratch again with SW, then generate drawings. But our customers really appreciate the pretty pictures and 3D PDFs we send them. As a designer I love Solidworks, but as a business man I don't think we are set up to be competitive with SW yet.

[CameroNut]

For mechanical enclosure work, component housings and keyboard housings and other mechanical designs we have been an AutoCad house for years. Once proficient with the tool we have not run into limitations with the product or add on components.

For electronic design we use OrCad. In cases where density factors require minimum connection run lenghts in order to minimize setup times and reduce transmission delay we use multiwire technology. Another benefit is in high density designs multiwire has helped reduced noise issues. Weoutsource multiwire work annd typically senf it out to bid to companies who can do design for schematic capture and produce the pcb boards for us.